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Reviews of Modern Physics

Equations-of-Motion Method and the Extended Shell Model

DAVID J. ROWE

Published Jan 1, 1968• 1,127 citations

Abstract

This paper presents the equations-of-motion method as a useful and flexible tool in the study of nuclear spectroscopy. It is partly a review, but also it introduces a new and much more powerful equations-of-motion technique which supercedes the older linearization methods. The older methods worked with operator equations. To obtain closed expressions they had to be linearized in a rather arbitrary manner. The present approach works with the ground-state expectation of operator equations and thereby avoids all problems of linearization. Thus, like the Green's function method, the equations-of-motion method becomes potentially exact. It has many advantages over Green's function methods, however, among which are its greater compactness, simplicity, and the physical insight it yields.The method is first applied to rederive the random phase approximation (RPA) and the quasi-particle RPA (QRPA) and to show precisely what terms they neglect. It is demonstrated that some of these terms have coherent phases. A higher RPA and QRPA are then derived to include these terms. The corrections have some interesting effects: notably, there is a reduction of the effective interaction strength and a stabilization of the nucleus against sudden phase transitions. The equations-of-motion method is also used to generalize, in a very simple and natural way, the Hartree-Fock (HF) and Hartree-Bogolyubov (HB) concepts of independent particles and quasi-particles to nonsimple ground states.The equations-of-motion method is presented as a simple extension of the shell model to the treatment of excitationg of a correlated ground state. By concentrating on the quantities of direct physical interest, the complexity of workins with correlated wavefunctions is avoided.

DOI: 10.1103/revmodphys.40.153

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This paper presents the equations-of-motion method as a useful and flexible tool in the study of nuclear spectroscopy. It is partly a review, but also it introduces a new and much more powerful equations-of-motion technique which supercedes the older linearization methods. The older methods worked with operator equations. To obtain closed expressions they had to be linearized in a rather arbitrary manner. The present approach works with the ground-state expectation of operator equations and thereby avoids all problems of linearization. Thus, like the Green's function method, the equations-of-motion method becomes potentially exact. It has many advantages over Green's function methods, however, among which are its greater compactness, simplicity, and the physical insight it yields.The method is first applied to rederive the random phase approximation (RPA) and the quasi-particle RPA (QRPA) and to show precisely what terms they neglect. It is demonstrated that some of these terms have coherent phases. A higher RPA and QRPA are then derived to include these terms. The corrections have some interesting effects: notably, there is a reduction of the effective interaction strength and a stabilization of the nucleus against sudden phase transitions. The equations-of-motion method is also used to generalize, in a very simple and natural way, the Hartree-Fock (HF) and Hartree-Bogolyubov (HB) concepts of independent particles and quasi-particles to nonsimple ground states.The equations-of-motion method is presented as a simple extension of the shell model to the treatment of excitationg of a correlated ground state. By concentrating on the quantities of direct physical interest, the complexity of workins with correlated wavefunctions is avoided.

The importance of ground-state correlations in the spectroscopy of a finite many-particle system, such as the nucleus, is investigated for the model Hamiltonian of Lipkin, Meshkov, and Glick. In particular, we have investigated their effect on the solution of the equations of motion for excitation energies, transition matrix elements, and the correlation energy of the ground state. Methods are studied for calculating the correlations needed to make the necessary corrections to the equations of motion. Also studied is the behavior, with increase of interaction strength, of the phase transition from the spherical to the strongly deformed intrinsic states, in the projected Hartree-Fock scheme.

Random Phase Approximation (RPA) is the theory most commonly used to describe the excitations of many-body systems. In this article, the secular equations of the theory are obtained by using three different approaches: the equation of motion method, the Green's function perturbation theory and the time-dependent Hartree--Fock theory. Each approach emphasizes specific aspects of the theory overlooked by the other methods. Extensions of the RPA secular equations to treat the continuum part of the excitation spectrum and also the pairing between the particles composing the system are presented. Theoretical approaches which overcome the intrinsic approximations of RPA are outlined.

Random Phase Approximation (RPA) is the theory most commonly used to describe the excitations of many-body systems. In this article, the secular equations of the theory are obtained by using three different approaches: the equation of motion method, the Green function perturbation theory and the time-dependent Hartree–Fock theory. Each approach emphasizes specific aspects of the theory overlooked by the other methods. Extensions of the RPA secular equations to treat the continuum part of the excitation spectrum and also the pairing between the particles composing the system are presented. Theoretical approaches which overcome the intrinsic approximations of RPA are outlined.

A general theory of long range correlations in the ground state of a closed shell nucleus is outlined, using a number of ideas introduced or adumbrated, but not always successfully developed, in previous work of the authors and others. These include the following: (i) Any operator can be formally expressed as a series in particle-hole (p-h) excitation and destruction operators which should converge rapidly for a suitable choice of single-particle basis at the closed shells. By means of these relations and with the help of sum rules all observables can be computed without the explicit use of wave functions. (ii) For a fixed choice of single-particle basis, the ground state energy can be computed from a variational principle in which in lowest nontrivial approximation, in consequence of (i), the parameters are amplitudes of the same type as occur in the random phase approximation (RPA). The precise relation to RPA is fully detailed. (iii) The single particle basis chosen is the natural orbital basis of Lowdin, which presents itself as the obvious choice both for formulation of the dynamics and for the algorithm of solution. (iv) Though the theory deals with pairs of fermion operators, particular attention is paid that all Pauli principle restrictions are satisfied. (v) It is verified that in the perturbation limit, known results are reproduced. The method is generally applicable to any system for which the correlations can be viewed as particle-hole excitations with respect to a reference Slater determinant.

A general implementation of the equation-of-motion (EOM) formalism for correlated many-body states is presented and applied to the description of collective excitations in atomic nuclei. While EOM approaches are traditionally formulated on top of independent-particle reference states, the present work extends the method to correlated reference states generated by modern many-body solvers. This formulation enables a consistent treatment of ground-state correlations and excited-state dynamics within a unified framework. Particular emphasis is placed on collective nuclear excitations employing chiral nuclear Hamiltonians in an ab initio context. The approach is motivated by the renewed interest in EOM techniques across several fields, including quantum chemistry and quantum computing, where they provide efficient and systematically improvable descriptions of excitation spectra. The present results demonstrate that the EOM framework offers a flexible and powerful tool for the microscopic description of nuclear spectroscopy beyond the traditional mean-field paradigm.

A nonlinear generalization of the quasiparticle random phase approximation is constructed with the aim of describing anharmonic effects in the low-lying spectra of vibrational nuclei. Angular momentum zero pairing correlations of the ground state are described by a generalized BCS calculation based on a variational method. The dynamics of the vibrational states are described by the Heisenberg equations of motion for fermion pair operators; matrix elements of products of pair operators are treated by sum rule methods. Kinematical constraints are expressed by the algebra of the pair operators and by boson-like polynomial expansions for the quasiparticle conserving multipole operators in terms of the quasiparticle pair changing operators, these expansions enforcing the content of the Pauli principle. The physical basis for the choice of approximations is described. The final algorithm is organized so as to involve little more than repeated BCS-like and RPA-like calculations, converging to a self-consistent solution of the full nonlinear scheme. Detailed discussion is carried out for a modified form of the pairing plus quadrupole interaction Hamiltonian, but the method is not confined to this model.NUCLEAR STRUCTURE Approximate many-body methods applied to modified pairing plus quadrupole model. Description of vibrational spectrum of single closed shell nuclei. Equations of motion and algebraic methods.