A theory for the effect of a strong intra-atomic Coulomb repulsion U on the nonadiabatic transfer of charge between a metallic surface and a moving atomic species is presented. Using slave bosons and a nonequilibrium Green's-function technique, we solve the equations appropriate for the U=\ensuremath{\infty} problem in the case when either the atom-surface hopping matrix element is small, or the number of degenerate atomic states is large. We generalize the earlier treatment of Langreth and Nordlander (LN) to include off-diagonal self-energies and present a general numerical scheme for the exact solution of the Dyson equations. We verify that our scheme gives the correct answer in several limiting cases where an exact solution is known, and give quantitative predictions of when deviations from these limits become important. These limits include (1) the simple master equation limit for low velocities and weak coupling, (2) the generalized master equation of LN for larger velocities and atom-surface coupling, (3) the approach to thermal equilibrium when the time dependence is removed, and (4) the maintenance of local thermal equilibrium when the energy parameters vary sufficiently slowly. From a calculation of the instantaneous (nonequilibrium) spectral function of the level on the scattering atom, we are able to study the rate of formation of the Kondo and mixed valent resonances near the Fermi level. We find a slow formation rate for such resonances relative to that of the broader parts of the spectral density centered near the bare atom level positions.
A theory for the effect of a strong intra-atomic Coulomb repulsion U on the nonadiabatic transfer of charge between a metallic surface and a moving atomic species is presented. Using slave bosons and a nonequilibrium Green's-function technique, we solve the equations appropriate for the U=\ensuremath{\infty} problem in the case when either the atom-surface hopping matrix element is small, or the number of degenerate atomic states is large. We generalize the earlier treatment of Langreth and Nordlander (LN) to include off-diagonal self-energies and present a general numerical scheme for the exact solution of the Dyson equations. We verify that our scheme gives the correct answer in several limiting cases where an exact solution is known, and give quantitative predictions of when deviations from these limits become important. These limits include (1) the simple master equation limit for low velocities and weak coupling, (2) the generalized master equation of LN for larger velocities and atom-surface coupling, (3) the approach to thermal equilibrium when the time dependence is removed, and (4) the maintenance of local thermal equilibrium when the energy parameters vary sufficiently slowly. From a calculation of the instantaneous (nonequilibrium) spectral function of the level on the scattering atom, we are able to study the rate of formation of the Kondo and mixed valent resonances near the Fermi level. We find a slow formation rate for such resonances relative to that of the broader parts of the spectral density centered near the bare atom level positions.
Using a recently developd many-body theory, we investigate the velocity dependence of charge transfer in atom-surface scattering. We show that under certain conditions, intra-atomic correlation effects can introduce nontrivial sources of nonadiabaticity. For situations where a sharp Kondo resonance is formed near the Fermi energy, the system can exhibit strong nonadiabatic effects even at low velocities. This nonadiabatic behavior is caused by the relatively long-time scale for the formation or survival of the Kondo peak.
This work is mainly devoted to the description of processes that involve the interaction between an atom and a surface, in which a strong Coulomb repulsion on the atomic site (U) limits the charge exchange to one electron (infinite-U limit). In this limit, the Anderson Hamiltonian for a many-fold (N) of states localized on the atomic site can be represented in terms of auxiliary bosons and physical operators in the mixed boson-electron space can be defined. In this work the Hamiltonian is solved by defining appropriate Green's functions for physical operators. Then we solved the equations of motion of these Green's functions, up to a second order in the atom-surface coupling, either for the stationary case or for a real time-dependent problem. We show that our approach reproduces the known exact results in the nondegenerate (N=1) case, and for $N\ensuremath{\succ}1$ gives excellent agreement with exact calculations and approximations valid for large N (the 1∕N expansion). Finally, the accurate description of dynamical processes is shown by the comparison with the exact results available for a small four-level system. In this case we also compare with results obtained by using the noncrossing approximation and with the usual spinless model calculation.
The Kondo effect may be observable in some atom-surface scattering experiments, in particular, those involving alkaline-earth atoms. By combining Keldysh techniques with the noncrossing (NCA) approximation to solve the time-dependent Newns-Anderson Hamiltonian in the $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{U}\ensuremath{\infty}$ limit, Shao, Nordlander, and Langreth found an anomalously strong surface-temperature dependence of the outgoing charge state fractions. Here we employ a dynamical 1/N expansion with a finite Coulomb interaction U to give a more realistic description of the scattering process. We test the accuracy of the 1/N expansion in the N=1 case of spinless fermions against the exact independent particle solution. We then compare results obtained in the $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{U}\ensuremath{\infty}$ limit with the NCA at N=4 and recover qualitative features already found. Finally, we analyze the realistic situation of Ca atoms with U=5.8 eV scattered off Cu(001) surfaces. Although the presence of the doubly ionized Ca2+ species can change the absolute scattered Ca+ yields, the temperature dependence is qualitatively the same as that found in the $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{U}\ensuremath{\infty}$ limit. One of the main difficulties that experimentalists face in attempting to detect this effect is that the atomic velocity must be kept small enough to limit kinematic smearing of the Fermi surface of the metal.
We investigate a simple surface hopping (SH) approach for modeling a single impurity level coupled to a single phonon and an electronic (metal) bath (i.e., the Anderson-Holstein model). The phonon degree of freedom is treated classically with motion along--and hops between--diabatic potential energy surfaces. The hopping rate is determined by the dynamics of the electronic bath (which are treated implicitly). For the case of one electronic bath, in the limit of small coupling to the bath, SH recovers phonon relaxation to thermal equilibrium and yields the correct impurity electron population (as compared with numerical renormalization group). For the case of out of equilibrium dynamics, SH current-voltage (I-V) curve is compared with the quantum master equation (QME) over a range of parameters, spanning the quantum region to the classical region. In the limit of large temperature, SH and QME agree. Furthermore, we can show that, in the limit of low temperature, the QME agrees with real-time path integral calculations. As such, the simple procedure described here should be useful in many other contexts.
The ways of introducing and handling renormalizations in the many-body perturbation theory are reviewed. We stress the indispensable role the technique of Green functions plays in extrapolating the weak-coupling perturbative approaches to intermediate and strong couplings. We separately discuss mass and charge renor- malizations. The former is incorporated in a self-consistent equation for the self-energy derived explicitly from generating Feynman diagrams within the Baym and Kadanoff approach. The latter amounts to self-consistent equations for two-particle irreducible vertices. We analyze the charge renormalization initiated by De Domi- nicis and Martin and demonstrate that its realization via the parquet approach may become a powerful and viable way of using the many-body diagrammatic approach reliably in non-perturbative regimes with coopera- tive phenomena induced by either strong interaction or strong static randomness. Electric and magnetic properties of solids are determined by the behavior of valence electrons weakly bound to the atoms forming the crystalline lattice. The behavior of the gas of valence electrons in solids is most profound in metals with an open Fermi surface. Conduction electrons in metals can be described in a number of situations and for various purposes quite accurately by Bloch waves, eigenstates of the Fermi-gas Hamiltonian. We know, however, that electrons even in metals are not a noninteracting gas. They are generally exposed to forces driving them out of the equilibrium state of the Fermi gas. Firstly, no metal is a pure crystal and hence the electrons do not move freely in space. They are scattered on randomly distributed impurities and lattice defects. Secondly, the electrons are neither free and their mutual repulsion cannot be neglected particularly for transition and heavy metals. It is the most important and long standing task of condensed-matter theorists to comprehend and qualitatively capture the deviations in the behavior of electrons in real metals from their idealized representation via Bloch waves. The problem with quantification of the behavior of electrons beyond the almost free-electron picture is in paucity of available tools for accomplishing this task. Even if we can reduce the description of the electron gas in metals to rather simple and generic models, we are unable to solve them exactly, except for a few limiting cases that mostly do not correspond to situations of physical interest. With the increasing power of modern computers the role of numerical solutions and numerical brute force approaches has increased. Numerical solutions are usually unbiased and can reach a rather high level of quantitative precision. In some aspects they substitute the missing exact analytic solutions. Numerical solutions are suitable and even indispensable in showing and displaying the trends and some global features of the models studied. They, however, fail in critical regions of phase transitions in the vicinity of singularities in correlation functions. In these
A review of electronic dynamics of single-impurity and many-impurity Anderson models is contained in this report. Those models are used widely for many of the applications in diverse fields of interest, such as surface physics, theory of chemisorption and adsorbate reactions on metal surfaces, physics of intermediate valence systems, theory of heavy fermions, physics of quantum dots and other nanostructures. While standard treatments are generally based on perturbation methods, our approach is based on the non-perturbative technique for the thermodynamic Green functions. The method of the irreducible Green functions is used as the basic tool. This irreducible Green functions method allows one to describe the quasiparticle spectra with damping of the strongly correlated electron systems in a very general and natural way and to construct the relevant dynamical solution in a self-consistent way on the level of Dyson equation without decoupling the chain of the equations of motion for the Green functions. The subject matter includes the improved interpolating solution of the Anderson model. It was shown that an interpolating approximation, which simultaneously reproduces the weak-coupling limit up to second order in the interaction strength U and the strong-coupling limit up to second order in the hybridization V (and thus also fulfils the atomic limit) can be formulated self-consistently. This approach offers a new way for the systematic construction of approximate interpolation dynamical solutions of strongly correlated electron systems.