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Physical Review

Ground-State Energy of a Many-Fermion System

Walter Kohn, J. M. Luttinger

Published Apr 1, 1960• 278 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This paper contains a critique of the Brueckner-Goldstone perturbation series for the ground-state energy of an interacting gas of fermions. We have calculated this energy by first constructing the grand partition function at finite temperature, and then carefully taking the limit as $T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$. In general this leads to a series which differs from that of Brueckner and Goldstone. An exception is the case where both the unperturbed single-particle energy as well as the interaction potential have spherical symmetry. Reasons for the breakdown of the Brueckner-Goldstone formalism are briefly discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physrev.118.41

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This paper contains a critique of the Brueckner-Goldstone perturbation series for the ground-state energy of an interacting gas of fermions. We have calculated this energy by first constructing the grand partition function at finite temperature, and then carefully taking the limit as T\ensuremath→0T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0T\ensuremath→0. In general this leads to a series which differs from that of Brueckner and Goldstone. An exception is the case where both the unperturbed single-particle energy as well as the interaction potential have spherical symmetry. Reasons for the breakdown of the Brueckner-Goldstone formalism are briefly discussed.
The perturbation series for the ground-state energy of a many-fermion system is investigated to arbitrary order for the "isotropic" case. This is the case of over-all spherical symmetry, both in the interaction and in the unperturbed single particle energies. It is shown that for spin one-half fermions the Brueckner-Goldstone perturbation series is valid to all orders in the perturbation. For spins greater than one-half it is in general incorrect even in the isotropic case, unless the interactions are spin independent.The discussion to arbitrary order in the interaction is carried out by means of a Feynman-like propagator formalism, which is developed in detail.
Perturbation theoretic equations for several properties of the zero-temperature many-fermion normal system are rederived from general considerations. Though none of the equations are new, some of the derivations are, and taken together they form a brief and simple summary of many-fermion relations and a basis for further investigation of the basic perturbation description of the many-fermion normal system: the Brueckner-Goldstone expansion. A "change-of-parameter" technique is then developed and employed to investigate the possible use of the true momentum density instead of the unperturbed Fermi distribution in the Brueckner-Goldstone expansion and in the Brueckner KKK-matrix approximation. The result is a simpler, approximate perturbation series for the interaction energy, whose accuracy for nuclear matter is estimated to be approximately \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2 MeV. The new approximation is exact to the fourth order.
In order to investigate the validity of the Brueckner and the simple sum of the ladder diagrams approximations to the energy of an infinite system of fermions, we have calculated as a function of density all the terms in the perturbation expansion through the fourth order in the strength of the potential. We have done this for a repulsive, square-well, two-body potential spin-\textonehalf{} fermions. We are able to construct rigorous upper and lower bounds from the coefficients for the value of the ladder approximation and find that the standard solution procedures give reasonably accurate results (within a few percent). We find that the error in the solution as obtained in practice to the equations of the Brueckner approximation is large compared to the size of its departure from the ladder approximation. We further find for low-to-moderate densities and for low-to-moderate potential strengths that the Brueckner approximation both as a sum of a certain class of diagrams and as computed in practice lies above the ladder approximation while the complete perturbation theory lies below it. This result arises from the neglect of the ring diagrams by the Brueckner approximation.
The ground state of a many-particle boson system is studied for two closely related limits: the uniform limit and the weak coupling limit. The former is defined by $\ensuremath{\alpha}=1\ensuremath{-}g(0)\ensuremath{\ll}1$ and the latter by $\ensuremath{\beta}=\frac{(N\ensuremath{-}{N}_{0})}{N}\ensuremath{\ll}1$, where g(r)g(r)g(r) is the radial distribution function and N0{N}_{0}N0​ is the mean occupation number of the zero-momentum state. In the uniform limit the variation-perturbation approach based on (a) the method of correlated basis functions and (b) the series expansion in powers of $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ is found to be equivalent to the field-theoretic treatment given by Brueckner (for the charged-boson gas) in the weak coupling limit. In particular, it is shown that the variation-perturbation energy obtained for the uniform limit in the momentum representation is identical through second order to the ground-state energy evaluated for $\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\ll}1$ by summing one- and two-ring diagrams in the Bogoliubov occupation-number representation. The charged-boson gas and the one-dimensional boson system with a $\ensuremath{\delta}$-function interaction are considered to examine some of the interesting features of the uniform-limit procedure.
The ground-state energy and low-energy excitations of single-particle character of an infinite medium of fermions are discussed with the aid of time-dependent Green's functions, which are convenient generalizations of the exact particle correlation functions in the ground state of NNN particles. The power series development for the one- and two-particle functions, under the restriction to two-body forces, is derived and described by means of Feynman diagrams. The derivation of the linked-cluster expansion for the energy then follows immediately. The equivalence to previous versions is established. The one-particle function is examined in particular detail, and it is shown that the poles of its space-time Fourier transform studied as a function of the energy variable, for fixed momentum, determined the (N+1N+1N+1)-particle and ($N\ensuremath{-}1$)-particle excited states which have single-particle character. For a reasonable assumption about the full spectrum of excited states, it is found that for the interacting system, single-particle excitations with a real energy occur only at the Fermi momentum. It is pointed out that the corresponding energy, termed the perturbed Fermi energy, equals the binding energy per particle in the ground state of NNN particles for a saturating system at equilibrium density.It is shown, finally, that the entire structure of the theory may be carried over to the case of finite temperature, requiring only a redefinition of the Green's functions. The analogy is constructed from a discussion of the internal energy.
We have examined the ground state of the many-fermion system, using perturbation theory, with particular attention to Brueckner's method. A study of the single-particle propagators in the ground state of the system sheds some light on the relation between the single-particle energies used, for example, in the optical model of nuclear reactions, and Brucekner's self-consistent energies. This leads naturally to the use of a renormalization factor to allow for propagation off the energy shell. It is possible to formulate the perturbation theory entirely in terms of graphs with no fermion self-energy parts, and this method is used to examine the approximations used for this problem, and to relate more closely the calculations of the ground-state energy and of other properties of the ground state.