An application of a self-consistent version of RPA to quantum field theory with broken symmetry is presented. Although our approach can be applied to any bosonic field theory, we specifically study the
ϕ4 theory in 1+1 dimensions. We show that standard RPA approach leads to an instability which can be removed when going to a superior version,i.e. the renormalized RPA. We present a method based on the so-called charging formula of the many electron problem to calculate the correlation energy and the RPA effective potential.
The exactly solvable Luttinger model for a system of one-dimensional, massless, two-component fermions interacting via general two-body forces is used as a test case for a systematically generated sequence of decoupling approximations commonly referred to as random-phase approximations (RPA) of which the simple RPA is the lowest. It is found, irrespective of both the nature and strength of the interaction, that the exact (collective) spectrum, as well as the exact correlation energy, can already be obtained in the simple RPA, and furthermore, that the next higher RPA gives a vanishing correction to these quantities. It is also shown, quite in contradistinction to the exact result, that the free-gas momentum distribution
nk persists in the second RPA as well as in the first, thereby eliminating the higher RPA as a possible approach to the calculation of
nk. Thus, in the context of this particular model, although the first few orders of RPA are highly effective for calculating the excitation spectrum and correlation energy, they are sensibly powerless in their ability to predict any variation in structure beyond that of the free-gas distribution, a result which most probably holds as well in the realistic three-dimensional case.
We use our recently developed functional bosonization approach to bosonize interacting fermions in arbitrary dimension d beyond the Gaussian approximation. Even in d=1 the finite curvature of the energy dispersion at the Fermi surface gives rise to interactions between the bosons. In higher dimensions scattering processes describing momentum transfer between different patches on the Fermi surface (around-the-corner processes) are an additional source for corrections to the Gaussian approximation. We derive an explicit expression for the leading correction to the bosonized Hamiltonian and the irreducible self-energy of the bosonic propagator that takes the finite curvature as well as around-the-corner proceses into account. In the special case that around-the-corner scattering is negligible, we show that the self-energy correction to the Gaussian propagator is negligible if the dimensionless quantities (
qc/
kF)dF0 [1+
F0${]}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1}$\ensuremath{\mu}/${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\alpha}}}$\ensuremath{\Vert}\ensuremath{\partial}${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\alpha}}}$/\ensuremath{\partial}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\Vert} are small compared with unity for all patches \ensuremath{\alpha}. Here
qc is the cutoff of the interaction in wave-vector space,
kF is the Fermi wave vector, \ensuremath{\mu} is the chemical potential,
F0 is the usual dimensionless Landau interaction parameter, and ${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\alpha}}}$ is the local density of states associated with patch \ensuremath{\alpha}. We also show that the well-known cancellation between vertex and self-energy corrections in one-dimensional systems, which is responsible for the fact that the random-phase approximation (RPA) for the density-density correlation function is exact in d=1, exists also in d>1, provided (1) the interaction cutoff
qc is small compared with
kF, and (2) the energy dispersion is locally linearized at the Fermi surface. Finally, we suggest a systematic method to calculate corrections to the RPA, which is based on the perturbative calculation of the irreducible bosonic self-energy arising from the non-Gaussian terms of the bosonized Hamiltonian.
In this article, we revisit the question of the validity of Hartree-Fock and random-phase approximations. We show that there is a connection between the two and while the RPA as it is known in much of the physics literature is of limited validity, there is a generalised sense in which the random phase approximation is of much wider applicability including to systems that do not possess Fermi surfaces. The main conclusion is that the Hartree-Fock approximation is a mean-field idea applied to the density operator, and the random-phase approximation is a mean-field idea applied to the number operator. The generalised RPA is used to compute single-particle properties such as momentum distribution and spectral functions. It is found that we have to go beyond the generalised RPA and include fluctuations in the momentum distribution in order to recover a nonzero imaginary part of the one-particle self energy, which is also explicitly computed, all this in any number of spatial dimensions and no bosonization is needed.
A derivation of the random phase approximation is given, which is based on the generalized Schwinger representation of the fermion-pairs. The method is made of two stages : First, the truncation of the boson space is done, and secondly comes the separation of boson operators into static and fluctuating parts. The pairing vibration in the super phase and the so-called quadrupole oscillation are treated by the method, which leads to the same results as those of RPA. Then the relations of these bosons to ones appearing in RPA are clarified.