Transport equation of interacting fermions is re-considered in the light of the conservation law. We show that the exact equation for the particle-hole excitation is derived directly from the Ward identity, by simply transforming it. It is almost identical to that derived diagrammatically by Éliashberg, but the collision integral is written in the symmetric form. We further discuss the hidden ultraviolet divergence in the both treatments, claiming that the microscopic justification of the Landau-Silin equation has not yet been completed. The divergence is removed by incorporating the particle-particle and hole-hole pairs of excitations, without sacrificing the rigour. This requires re-identification of the distribution function, but does not alter the basic structure of the fermi liquid theory.
Transport process of non-interacting electrons is reformulated, in view of the exact treatment of interacting fermions reported by the present authors in this conference. It makes correspondence to the Boltzmann theory, covering the weakly localized regime, and also eliminates the hidden ultraviolet divergence by incorporating the particle-particle and hole-hole pairs. A mass renormalization of purely two-particle nature appears in the transport equation, giving rise to the conductivity of the Drude form. Taking the maximally crossed diagrams, the 2D conductivity is shown to vanish in the elastic scattering limit, while the distribition function preserves its sharp peak and the transport mass reduces to the free-electron value. The description differs from the self-consistent theory by Vollhardt and Wölfle, in which the Bethe-Salpeter structure of the scattering vertex is abandoned in favour of the time-reversal symmetry so the correspondence to the Boltzmann theory is lost.
The Fermi-liquid transport theory of electrical conductivity formulated by Eliashberg [Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 41, 1241 (1961)] is further developed, using the analytic continuation of the finite-temperature Ward-Takahashi relations obtained by the present author [Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 173, 226 (1987)] to maintain the theoretical consistency of approximation schemes for solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation. In particular, the finite-temperature Ward-Takahashi relations corresponding to the local conservation of the electron number density and to the conservation of the electron momentum are considered. A general expression for the electrical conductivity in terms of the proper vertex part is also obtained. In the formula, cancellation of the quasiparticle renormalization factors at the Fermi surface is explicitly shown in a general way without assuming a particular model. In the case that the electrons are scattered by phonons, the formula gives the Gr\"uneisen-Bloch formula for the on-shell phonons. For the impurity resistivity, the theory of Edwards [Philos. Mag. 3, 1020 (1958)] is developed to finite temperature by introducing a hypothetical boson field that replaces the impurity averaging.
We develop a new formulation of the functional renormalization group (RG) for interacting fermions. Our approach unifies the purely fermionic formulation based on the Grassmannian functional integral, which has been used in recent years by many authors, with the traditional Wilsonian RG approach to quantum systems pioneered by Hertz [Phys. Rev. B 14, 1165 (1976)], which attempts to describe the infrared behavior of the system in terms of an effective bosonic theory associated with the soft modes of the underlying fermionic problem. In our approach, we decouple the interaction by means of a suitable Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation (following the Hertz approach), but do not eliminate the fermions; instead, we derive an exact hierarchy of RG flow equations for the irreducible vertices of the resulting coupled field theory involving both fermionic and bosonic fields. The freedom of choosing a momentum transfer cutoff for the bosonic soft modes in addition to the usual band cutoff for the fermions opens the possibility of new RG schemes. In particular, we show how the exact solution of the Tomonaga-Luttinger model (i.e., one-dimensional fermions with linear energy dispersion and interactions involving only small momentum transfers) emerges from the functional RG if one works with a momentum transfer cutoff. Then the Ward identities associated with the local particle conservation at each Fermi point are valid at every stage of the RG flow and provide a solution of an infinite hierarchy of flow equations for the irreducible vertices. The RG flow equation for the irreducible single-particle self-energy can then be closed and can be reduced to a linear integrodifferential equation, the solution of which yields the result familiar from bosonization. We suggest new truncation schemes of the exact hierarchy of flow equations, which might be useful even outside the weak coupling regime.
A diagrammatic method of obtaining exact gauge-invariant response functions in strongly correlated Fermi superfluids is implemented for several example condensed matter systems of current interest. These include: topological superfluids, high temperature superconductors, and superfluids with finite center-of-mass momentum pairing known as Fulde-Ferrell superfluids. Much of the literature on these systems has focused on single-particle properties or alternatively has invoked simple approximations to treat response functions. The goal is to show that, for this wide class of topical problems, one can compute exact response functions. This enables assessment of the validity of different physical scenarios and allows a very broad class of experiments to be addressed.,The method developed is based on deriving the full electromagnetic vertex, which satisfies the Ward-Takahashi identity, and determining the collective modes in a manner compatible with the self-consistent gap equation. In the condensed phase of a superfluid and a superconductor, where gauge invariance is spontaneously broken, it is crucial to determine the collective modes from the gap equation in a manner which restores gauge invariance. Our diagrammatic framework provides a very general and powerful method for obtaining these collective modes in a variety of strongly correlated Fermi superfluids. We show that a full electromagnetic vertex satisfying the Ward-Takahashi identity ensures the
f-sum rule is satisfied and thus charge is conserved. ,This diagrammatic method is implemented for both normal and superfluid phases. While there are no collective modes in the normal phase, the Ward-Takahashi identity plays a similarly important role. In particular, for the normal phase we study Rashba spin-orbit coupled Fermi gases with intrinsic pairing in the absence and presence of a magnetic field. Exact density and spin response functions are obtained, even in the absence of a spin conservation law, providing signatures of topological order. Another set of examples studied in the normal phase include a broad collection of models of the cuprate pseudogap. For these cases too, the exact response functions are obtained and signatures of each model are identified. A detailed discussion of the superfluid phase is provided by the study of Fulde-Ferrell superfluids. The generally omitted collective modes are computed and the exact gauge-invariant response is obtained. The first complete calculation of the superfluid density, incorporating the collective mode contribution and without any assumptions on the size of the gap, is provided. It is found that the amplitude mode causes the superfluid to become unstable at temperatures much lower than the mean-field transition temperature.,As an alternative to the diagrammatic approach, the functional path integral technique for Fermi superfluids is presented. While this approach is widely studied in the literature, it is of restricted utility, in comparison to the diagrammatic approach presented here, due to the inability to perform the functional integral except in very limited cases. A short coming in the current literature is identified, in that the standard method of deriving gauge-invariant electrodynamics leads to a violation of the compressibility sum rule. It is found that to satisfy this sum rule the amplitude mode of the order parameter must be incorporated. A reformulation of the path integral method for Fermi superfluids is derived, which has both gauge-invariant electrodynamics and thermodynamics compatible with the compressibility sum rule, to all orders of approximation.