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Physical Review C

Quantal entropy, fluctuations, and the description of many-body ground states

N. Canosa, R. Rossignoli, Angelo Plastino, H. G. Miller

Published Mar 1, 1992• 17 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We examine a variational approximation for the ground state of a quantum system, based on a specially defined quantal entropy, within the context of two different nuclear models dealing with pairing and monopole interactions. A substantial improvement over standard and projected Hartree-Fock and BCS descriptions is obtained, especially in transitional regions and in the description of fluctuations of relevant quantities. An analytic treatment is also developed for the thermodynamic limit.

DOI
10.1103/physrevc.45.1162

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Background: Recently, variational Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) mean-field equations were shown to possess a mathematically well-defined zero-pairing limit, independently of the closed- or open-shell character of the system under consideration. This limit is nontrivial for open-shell systems such that HFB theory does not reduce to the Hartree-Fock (HF) formalism in all cases.Purpose: The present work extends this analysis to finite-temperature HFB (FTHFB) theory by investigating the behavior of this more general formalism in the combined zero-temperature and zero-pairing limits.Methods: The zero-pairing and zero-temperature limits of the FTHFB statistical density operator constrained to carry an arbitrary (integer) number of particles A on average is worked out analytically and realized numerically using a two-nucleon interaction.Results: While the FTHFB density operator reduces to the projector corresponding to a pure HF Slater determinant for closed-shell nuclei, the FTHFB formalism does not reduce to the HF theory in all cases in the zero-temperature and zero-pairing limits, i.e., for open-shell nuclei. However, the fact that a nucleus can be of open-shell character in these joint limits is necessarily the result of some symmetry restrictions. Whenever it is the case, the nontrivial description obtained for open-shell systems is shown to depend on the order with which both limits are taken, i.e., the two limits do not commute for these systems. When the zero-temperature limit is performed first, the FTHFB density operator is demoted to a projector corresponding to a pure state made out of a linear combination of a finite number of Slater determinants with different (even) numbers of particles. When the zero-pairing limit is performed first, the FTHFB density operator remains a statistical mixture of a finite number of Slater determinants with both even and odd particle numbers. While the entropy (pairing density) is zero in the first (second) case, it does not vanish in the second (first) case in spite of the temperature (pairing) tending towards zero. The difference between both limits can have striking consequences for the (thermal) expectation values of observables. For instance, the particle-number variance does not vanish in either case and has limiting values that differ by a factor of two in both cases.Conclusions: While in the textbook situation associated with closed-shell nuclei Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (finite-temperature Hartree-Fock) theory reduces to Hartree-Fock theory in the zero-pairing (zero-temperature) limit, the present analysis demonstrates that a nontrivial and unexpected limit is obtained for this formalism in open-shell systems. This result sheds a new light on certain aspects of this otherwise very well-studied many-body formalism.

arXiv:2008.01859•Physical Review C•Oct 27, 2020•7 citations
We examine a variational approximation for the ground state of a quantum system, based on a specially defined quantal entropy, within the context of two different nuclear models dealing with pairing and monopole interactions. A substantial improvement over standard and projected Hartree-Fock and BCS descriptions is obtained, especially in transitional regions and in the description of fluctuations of relevant quantities. An analytic treatment is also developed for the thermodynamic limit.
By extending the stochastic mean-field model by including pairing, an approach is proposed for describing the evolution of complex many-body systems in terms of an ensemble of time-dependent Hartree-Fock Bogoliubov trajectories which is determined by incorporating fluctuations in the initial state. The nonlinear evolution of the initial fluctuations provides an approximate description of quantal correlations and fluctuations of collective observables. Since the initial-state fluctuations break particle-number symmetry, the dynamical description in which pairing correlations play a crucial role is greatly improved as compared to the mean-field evolution. The approach is illustrated for a system of particles governed by a pairing Hamiltonian.
The general form of the energy of the ground state of a many-fermion system is shown to be exactly of the form proposed by Brueckner and Bethe, without approximation. In a variational treatment, if the trial wave function is picked containing only pair correlations, together with all possible unlinked pairs, it is described by a two-body excitation matrix 〈m1m2∣A∣p1p2〉〈{m}_{1}{m}_{2}|A|{p}_{1}{p}_{2}〉〈m1​m2​∣A∣p1​p2​〉. Variation of this matrix in the Ritz-Rayleigh principle yields a set of integral equations of the scattering type for the matrix AAA. Hole-state energies are given self-consistently in terms of the matrix AAA, but particle-state energies are Hartree-Fock energies. This may be corrected for by widely enlarging the class of terms admitted into the wave function. If the approximation is then made of omitting a class of terms, defined as cross-linked clusters in $〈\ensuremath{\psi}|H|\ensuremath{\psi}〉$, the particle-state energies are easily renormalized. Variation then leads to an infinite hierarchy of integral equations.
Extensions of the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory are worked out which are tailored for, (i) the consistent evaluation of fluctuations and correlations and (ii) the restoration through projection of broken symmetries. For both purposes we rely on a single variational principle which optimizes the characteristic function. The Bloch equation is used as a constraint to define the equilibrium state, and the trial quantities are a density operator and a Lagrangian multiplier matrix which is akin to an observable. The conditions of stationarity are respectively a Schrödinger-like equation and a Heisenberg-- like equation with an imaginary time running backwards. General conditions for the trial spaces are stated that warrant the preservation of thermodynamic relations. When the trial spaces are chosen to be of the independent-quasi-particle type, the ensuing coupled equations provide an extension of the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approximation, which optimizes the characteristic function. Variational expressions for thermodynamic quantities or characteristic functions are also obtained with projected trial states, whether an invariance symmetry is broken or not. In particular, the projection on even or odd particle number is worked out for a pairing Hamiltonian, which leads to new equations replacing the BCS ones. Qualitative differences between even and odd systems, depending on the temperature TTT, the level density and the strength of the pairing force, are investigated analytically and numerically.
We develop a new general theory for large quantum fluctuations in a Fermion many-body system that cannot be described by fluctuations around the Hartree-Fock ground state but arises from resonance of different correlation structures. We start with an exact coherent state representation of a Fermion system on a unitary group. We show that the Hamiltonian in the coherent state representation has a close connection with the Hartree-Fock energy functional. From this, we can derive a new approximation called the resonating Hartree-Fock approximation in which a state is approximated by a superposition of non-orthogonal Slater determinants with different correlation structures. We derive the variation equations to determine a resonating Hartree-Fock wavefunction. We show that the resonance between degenerate broken symmetry Slater determinants may partially recover the symmetry. We discuss how to choose trial Slater determinants in a resonating Hartree-Fock wavefunction. We suggest that resonance of Slater determinats representing localized defects, such as solitons, polarons and breathers, produced in the long range order of the HF ground state may be the most important content of large quantum fluctuations in condensed matter systems.
In this thesis a method for doing approximate calculations of the ground state of quantum mechanical many-body systems is developed and implemented. This method uses the Hartree-Fock method as a starting point and approximates the ground state as a linear combination of non-orthogonal Slater determinants. The Slater determinants are added consecutively by minimising their associated energy while keeping the previously found Slater determinants fixed. This method was tested on a quantum harmonic oscillator filled with interacting fermions and was found to give good approximations to the ground state of this system with only a few Slater determinants. Error estimation of the approximated ground state is done by calculating the energy variance. The energy variance was used in two different methods for improving upon the approximated energy, both of which was found to work well.
Background: Recently, variational Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) mean-field equations were shown to possess a mathematically well-defined zero-pairing limit, independently of the closed- or open-shell character of the system under consideration. This limit is nontrivial for open-shell systems such that HFB theory does not reduce to the Hartree-Fock (HF) formalism in all cases.Purpose: The present work extends this analysis to finite-temperature HFB (FTHFB) theory by investigating the behavior of this more general formalism in the combined zero-temperature and zero-pairing limits.Methods: The zero-pairing and zero-temperature limits of the FTHFB statistical density operator constrained to carry an arbitrary (integer) number of particles A on average is worked out analytically and realized numerically using a two-nucleon interaction.Results: While the FTHFB density operator reduces to the projector corresponding to a pure HF Slater determinant for closed-shell nuclei, the FTHFB formalism does not reduce to the HF theory in all cases in the zero-temperature and zero-pairing limits, i.e., for open-shell nuclei. However, the fact that a nucleus can be of open-shell character in these joint limits is necessarily the result of some symmetry restrictions. Whenever it is the case, the nontrivial description obtained for open-shell systems is shown to depend on the order with which both limits are taken, i.e., the two limits do not commute for these systems. When the zero-temperature limit is performed first, the FTHFB density operator is demoted to a projector corresponding to a pure state made out of a linear combination of a finite number of Slater determinants with different (even) numbers of particles. When the zero-pairing limit is performed first, the FTHFB density operator remains a statistical mixture of a finite number of Slater determinants with both even and odd particle numbers. While the entropy (pairing density) is zero in the first (second) case, it does not vanish in the second (first) case in spite of the temperature (pairing) tending towards zero. The difference between both limits can have striking consequences for the (thermal) expectation values of observables. For instance, the particle-number variance does not vanish in either case and has limiting values that differ by a factor of two in both cases.Conclusions: While in the textbook situation associated with closed-shell nuclei Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (finite-temperature Hartree-Fock) theory reduces to Hartree-Fock theory in the zero-pairing (zero-temperature) limit, the present analysis demonstrates that a nontrivial and unexpected limit is obtained for this formalism in open-shell systems. This result sheds a new light on certain aspects of this otherwise very well-studied many-body formalism.