This article gives a discussion of the application of the extended coupled-cluster method (ECCM) to the excited states of a general quantum many-body system. The direct eigenvalue equations for the excitation amplitudes of both the ket and the bra eigenstates are derived in the biorthogonal basis obtained by a double similarity transformation. The equations correspond to the diagonalization of a matrix involving second-order functional derivatives of the average-value functional for the Hamiltonian with respect to the basic ECCM amplitudes. The same excitation spectrum is obtained by considering small oscillations around the equilibrium. The problem with its associated effective Hamiltonian has the structure of a generalized random-phase approximation. By diagonalizing the effective Hamiltonian we perform a canonical or symplectomorphic coordinate transformation into normal coordinates in the symplectic ECCM phase space. In this coordinate system the exact average-value functional for the Hamiltonian has a structure analogous to that of classical lattice dynamics or the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory. At all stages the method satisfies the property of quantum locality, which in real space shows up as a definite quasilocality. Due to this property the method allows, for example, the treatment of mesonlike excitations in the presence of topological objects or in other symmetry-broken equilibrium states.
This article gives a discussion of the application of the extended coupled-cluster method (ECCM) to the excited states of a general quantum many-body system. The direct eigenvalue equations for the excitation amplitudes of both the ket and the bra eigenstates are derived in the biorthogonal basis obtained by a double similarity transformation. The equations correspond to the diagonalization of a matrix involving second-order functional derivatives of the average-value functional for the Hamiltonian with respect to the basic ECCM amplitudes. The same excitation spectrum is obtained by considering small oscillations around the equilibrium. The problem with its associated effective Hamiltonian has the structure of a generalized random-phase approximation. By diagonalizing the effective Hamiltonian we perform a canonical or symplectomorphic coordinate transformation into normal coordinates in the symplectic ECCM phase space. In this coordinate system the exact average-value functional for the Hamiltonian has a structure analogous to that of classical lattice dynamics or the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory. At all stages the method satisfies the property of quantum locality, which in real space shows up as a definite quasilocality. Due to this property the method allows, for example, the treatment of mesonlike excitations in the presence of topological objects or in other symmetry-broken equilibrium states.
The quantum-mechanical many-body problem is studied using the extended coupled-cluster method (ECCM) as a convenient parametrization of the Hilbert space. A systematic development of the formalism is given, and the quantum-mechanical problem is cast into the form of a classical Hamiltonian field theory in a complex symplectic phase space. The equations of motion of the basic ECCM amplitudes are derived both from a dynamical action principle using the ECCM average-value functional, and directly from the Schr\"odinger equation using the ECCM double similarity transformation. Rules are given for the construction of the Hamiltonian and other observables as well as their products. In particular, commutators are shown to be mapped into generalized classical Poisson brackets. The description is interpreted as an exact bosonization of the quantum theory in which the concept of bosonization is carried to the logical extreme, namely, the resulting generalized coherent bosons are identifiable with classical fields. The quantum-mechanical states of the system are points in the ECCM phase space, and their time evolution, or trajectories, are controlled by a classical Hamiltonian. The bosonization has a perturbation-theoretical basis in terms of maximally linked generalized tree diagrams. The increased degree of locality of the basic amplitudes allows applications to topological excitations and cases with spontaneous symmetry breaking.
Earlier papers in this series have shown how the extended coupled-cluster method (ECCM) provides a widely applicable biorthogonal formulation of quantum many-body and quantum field theory. Rules for calculating matrix elements of arbitrary operators have been formulated, and an exact description of the excited states has been given in terms of a generalized random-phase approximation for the many-body, quasilocal c-number (classical), ECCM cluster amplitudes which completely and exactly parametrize the system. The present paper introduces a variational functional in order to treat the excited states differently within the ECCM framework, so as to allow extra flexibility in the choice of approximation schemes. The method is tested on the SU(2) quasispin model of Lipkin, Meshkov, and Glick [Nucl. Phys. 62, 188 (1965); 62, 199 (1965)], which contains the spontaneous breakdown of parity, and which models a shape transition in finite atomic nuclei. The method very well describes both the ground and excited states of the model Hamiltonian over a broad range of coupling parameters on both sides of the critical value corresponding to the transition.
The extended coupled-cluster method (ECCM) of quantum many-body theory, which has been studied and developed in earlier papers in this series, is now applied to condensed Bose systems. The formalism is seen to provide a concise and convenient description of quite general nonstatic states of such systems with arbitrary spatial inhomogeneity. The entire ECCM description is based on the equations of motion for the set of linked-cluster amplitudes which, we have shown, completely characterize an arbitrary quantum system with a Schr\"odinger dynamics. Since all such amplitudes obey the cluster property, and hence may be regarded as a set of quasilocal, many-body, classical order parameters, the formalism is in principle perfectly capable of describing phase transitions and states of topological excitation or deformation and broken symmetry. At the lowest (mean-field) level of truncation, the formalism degenerates to the well-known Gross-Pitaevskii description of the condensate wave function or one-body order parameter. The treatment is developed in a fully gauge-invariant fashion, and is thereby shown to provide a complete hydrodynamical description, valid in the zero-temperature limit. In particular, by studying the off-diagonal one- and two-body density matrices in terms of the basic ECCM amplitudes, we derive balance (or local conservation) equations for such local observables as the number density, momentum density, and energy density. These are shown to be obeyed not only by the exact untruncated formalism but also by most practical truncation schemes in the ECCM configuration space.
We review the basic principles of the various coupled cluster (CC) methods based on an exponential form for the many-body wavefunction, and contrast them with the configuration–interaction (CI) method. Particular emphasis is placed on their applicability to problems in quantum chemistry. We prove that in all cases we can construct an energy functional which variationally determines both the ground–state wavefunction and the dynamic equations of motion for nonstationary states. As a result the equations of motion assume the familiar classical canonical Hamiltonian form in some well-defined (multibody) configuration space. We also thereby construct the expectation-value functional for an arbitrary operator in such a way that the Feynman–Hellmann theorem is preserved at all natural levels of truncation of the appropriate configuration space. We show in detail that only in the case of the recently introduced extended CC method (ECCM) is the expectation-value functional expressed fully in terms of linked (multilocal) amplitudes. The ECCM is thereby capable of describing such global phenomena as shape transitions and other stereochemical properties, and the large-scale behavior of the molecular energy surfaces. We illustrate our methodology on the one-body density matrix, which is now much more easily discussed than by conventional methods in quantum chemistry.
The problem of finding the spectrum of the Fock-space Hamiltonian \ifmmode \hat{H}\else \^{H}\fi{} for a system of many fermions is analyzed. The quasiparticle formalism is employed, with ``holes'' and ``particles'' defined with respect to some N-particle determinantal wave function (the model vacuum). The basic idea behind the proposed approach is to perform a similarity transformation of Hamiltonian \ifmmode \hat{H}\else \^{H}\fi{}, such that the resulting effective Hamiltonian \ifmmode \hat{G}\else \^{G}\fi{} is, unlike \ifmmode \hat{H}\else \^{H}\fi{}, a quasiparticle-number--conserving operator. It is shown that eigenvalues of \ifmmode \hat{G}\else \^{G}\fi{}, corresponding to small numbers of quasiparticles (0,1,2) can be easily calculated. This is equivalent to finding eigenvalues of \ifmmode \hat{H}\else \^{H}\fi{} for certain states of N, N\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1, and N\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2 particles. The construction of the operator transforming \ifmmode \hat{H}\else \^{H}\fi{} into \ifmmode \hat{G}\else \^{G}\fi{} (the wave operator) stems from an analysis of the structure of the algebra of linear operators acting in a (finite-dimensional) Fock space. The exponential Ansatz for the wave operator is used, resulting in a generalization of the coupled-cluster (CC) method of Coester [Nucl. Phys. 7, 421 (1958)]. The generalized CC equations determining the wave operator, and equations determining the effective Hamiltonian \ifmmode \hat{G}\else \^{G}\fi{}, are presented in a diagrammatic form. An effort has been made to obtain a concise notation for expressing these equations in an algebraic form. Approximation schemes, necessary for practical applications of the proposed method, are also studied.
The coupled cluster method (CCM) is one of the most powerful and most successful fully microscopic, ab initio formulations available for quantum N-body theory, with N finite or infinite. It has probably been applied to more systems in quantum chemistry, nuclear, condensed matter and other areas of physics, and quantum field theory than any other competing method. In nearly all such cases the numerical results are either the best or among the best available. The CCM can deal with ground- and excited-state energies of closed- and open-shell systems, density matrices and hence other properties, sum rules, and the sub-sum-rules that follow from imbedding linear response theory within it. Extensions exist to deal with systems at nonzero temperature and out of equilibrium. At the formal level it provides an exact mapping of the quantum-mechanical problem onto a classical Hamiltonian phase space where the multiconfigurational canonical classical coordinates have specific cluster and locality properties. In this way it can provide exact hierarchical generalizations of mean-field theory and the random phase approximation. We discuss here both the formalism itself and a selection of its applications.