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Physical Review

Temperature Dependence of the Infrared Divergence in the Degenerate Fermi Gas

Richard A. Ferrell

Published Oct 10, 1969• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A sudden change in a short-range single-particle potential excites an infinite number of low-energy particlehole pairs in a degenerate Fermion gas. Although each order of perturbation theory diverges, the perturbation series can be summed formally. The sum agrees in the limit of zero temperature with a result due to Nozi\`eres and De Dominicis. At finite temperature, it confirms a conjecture of Anderson's. The excitation spectrum at energies that are small compared to the temperature can be interpreted in terms of a relaxation frequency, which is proportional to the temperature times the square of the phase shift.

DOI
10.1103/physrev.186.399

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A sudden change in a short-range single-particle potential excites an infinite number of low-energy particlehole pairs in a degenerate Fermion gas. Although each order of perturbation theory diverges, the perturbation series can be summed formally. The sum agrees in the limit of zero temperature with a result due to Nozi`eres and De Dominicis. At finite temperature, it confirms a conjecture of Anderson's. The excitation spectrum at energies that are small compared to the temperature can be interpreted in terms of a relaxation frequency, which is proportional to the temperature times the square of the phase shift.
The order-by-order renormalization of the self-consistent mean-field potential in many-body perturbation theory for normal Fermi systems is investigated in detail. Building on previous work mainly by Balian and de Dominicis, as a key result we derive a thermodynamic perturbation series that manifests the consistency of the adiabatic zero-temperature formalism with perturbative statistical mechanics---for both isotropic and anisotropic systems---and satisfies at each order and for all temperatures the thermodynamic relations associated with Fermi-liquid theory. These properties are proved to all orders.
It is shown analytically and numerically that the finite-temperature many-body perturbation theory in the grand canonical ensemble has zero radius of convergence at zero temperature when the energy ordering or degree of degeneracy for the ground state changes with the perturbation strength. When the degeneracy of the reference state is partially or fully lifted at the first-order Hirschfelder-Certain degenerate perturbation theory, the second-order grand potential and internal energy diverge as $T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$. Contrary to earlier suggestions of renormalizability by the chemical potential $\ensuremath{\mu}$, this nonconvergence, first suspected by Kohn and Luttinger, is caused by the nonanalytic nature of the Boltzmann factor ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}E/{k}_{\text{B}}T}$ at T=0T=0T=0, also plaguing the canonical ensemble, which does not involve $\ensuremath{\mu}$. The finding reveals a fundamental flaw in perturbation theory, which is deeply rooted in the mathematical limitation of power-series expansions and is unlikely to be removed within its framework.
We study heat transport in a gas of one-dimensional fermions in the presence of a small temperature gradient. At temperatures well below the Fermi energy there are two types of relaxation processes in this system, with dramatically different relaxation rates. As a result, in addition to the usual thermal conductivity, one can introduce the thermal conductivity of the gas of elementary excitations, which quantifies the dissipation in the system in the broad range of frequencies between the two relaxation rates. We develop a microscopic theory of these transport coefficients in the limit of weak interactions between the fermions.
We study how a system of one-dimensional spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ fermions at temperatures well below the Fermi energy approaches thermal equilibrium. The interactions between fermions are assumed to be weak and are accounted for within the perturbation theory. In the absence of an external magnetic field, spin degeneracy strongly affects relaxation of the Fermi gas. For sufficiently short-range interactions, the rate of relaxation scales linearly with temperature. Focusing on the case of the system near equilibrium, we linearize the collision integral and find the exact solution of the resulting relaxation problem. We discuss the application of our results to the evaluation of the transport coefficients of the one-dimensional Fermi gas.
Non-Fermi liquids in d=2d=2d=2 spatial dimensions can arise from coupling a Fermi surface to a gapless boson. At finite temperature, however, the perturbative quantum field theory description breaks down due to infrared divergences. These are caused by virtual static bosonic modes and affect both fermionic and bosonic correlators. We show how these divergences are resolved by self-consistent boson and fermion self-energies that resum an infinite class of diagrams and correct the standard Eliashberg equations. Extending a previous approach in $d=3\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ dimensions, we find a new ``thermal non-Fermi liquid'' regime that violates the scaling laws of the zero-temperature fixed point and dominates over a wide range of scales. We conclude that basic properties of quantum phase transitions and quantum-classical crossovers at finite temperature are modified in crucial ways in systems with soft bosonic fluctuations, and we begin a study of some of the phenomenological consequences.
The momentum distribution in a low-temperature Fermi gas is investigated using the methods of quantum statistics developed by Lee and Yang together with the linked-pair expansions of the previous paper. It is shown that in order to determine the momentum distribution at very low temperatures two coupled integral equations must be considered, one in momentum variables and due to Lee and Yang, and the other in temperature variables. It is also shown that the dominant low-temperature behavior of the momentum distribution can be extracted in terms of a certain function ${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{\ensuremath{'}}(\mathrm{k})$. For a low-density Fermi gas with strong, short-range, two-body interactions, it is shown to third order in the scattering parameters of the interaction that at T=0T=0T=0 the function ${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{\ensuremath{'}}(\mathrm{k})$ is equal to the free particle momentum distribution. Also, the energy and other thermodynamic quantities are expressed in terms of ${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{\ensuremath{'}}(\mathrm{k})$, so that the theory permits a generalization of perturbation theoretic results to nonzero temperatures. The ground-state energy, momentum distribution, and thermodynamic potential are calculated to third order in the scattering parameters.