Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Physical Review

Retarded Interactions in Fermi Systems. II. Quasiparticle Lifetimes

C. B. Dover, Richard H. Lemmer

Published Jul 20, 1969• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Properties of the inverse lifetime $\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ of quasiparticles in an infinite system of nucleons ("nuclear matter") interacting via the exchange of a neutral scalar boson are studied in the dielectric formulation of the many-body problem. It is shown that the polarization of the nuclear medium plays an essential role in determining $\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$. The presence of the medium mediates the interaction between two nucleons in it through the introduction of an effective "dielectric constant" for nuclear matter. The interaction becomes "dressed" in a fashion analogous to, but different in its details from, the screening of the Coulomb interaction between electrons in metals. Calculations of $\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ are made for nuclear matter both in second-order perturbation theory, and using the fully dressed interaction calculated in the random-phase approximation (RPA). The RPA estimate is lower by about a factor of 3 over a wide range of momenta and is in good agreement with empirical optical-model estimates of $\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$. The second-order perturbation estimate is by contrast entirely inadequate, emphasizing the importance of taking the polarization effects into account for scattering processes at actual nuclear densities. The use of a dielectric constant for the medium also introduces another feature into the properties of $\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$. The behavior of $\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ near the Fermi surface now becomes sensitive to whether or not the interacting ground state is unstable with respect to a permanent density fluctuation. If it is, then $\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ behaves like ($p\ensuremath{-}{p}_{F}$) instead of ${(p\ensuremath{-}{p}_{F})}^{2}$ near the Fermi surface (${p}_{F}$ is the Fermi momentum). This is not a new physical result, but rather a reflection of the inadequacy of the RPA if the system becomes unstable. It is shown that as the momentum increases the effect of such an instability, if present, decreases, and becomes entirely negligible when $p\ensuremath{\gtrsim}\sqrt{2}{p}_{F}$.

DOI
10.1103/physrev.183.908

Related papers

Electron correlations. II. Ground-state results at low and metallic densities

R. F. Bishop, K.H. Lührmann

In this second work in a series of papers the coupled-cluster or $\mathrm{exp}(S)$ formalism is applied to the problem of ground-state correlations in the one-component Fermi plasma. The main approximation employed is the so-called SUB2 approximation for the two-body subsystem correlation operator ${S}_{2}$ which provides a measure of the two-particle---two-hole component in the true ground-state wave function, and in which the coupling to larger subsystems is neglected. The SUB2 equations for Fermi systems are brought into tractable form by a "state-averaging" procedure which we develop by analogy with the comparable Bose equations, and which is shown by comparison with earlier exact results to be accurate in the metallic density regime at about the 1% level. Our final results for metallic densities include the completely integrated and self-consistent effects of the terms which by themselves generate (i) the random-phase approximation (RPA) and its associated exact long-range screening effects, (ii) the extra random-phase approximation exchange terms necessary to keep the RPA explicitly antisymmetric, (iii) the self-consistent particle-particle ladders (LAD) that describe two-particle scattering within the many-body medium and which describe the exact short-range behavior, (iv) a class of particle-hole ladder terms, and (v) the self-consistent hole-potential terms. Particular attention is paid to the important effects caused by the interference at intermediate separations of the long-range RPA and the short-range LAD effects. By comparison with recent and essentially exact stochastic simulations of the many-body Schr\"odinger equation, our results are seen to be accurate to about 1% for metallic densities, and hence to provide what is probably the currently best microscopic description available for this system. We show also that even in the low-density limit the SUB2 approximation provides a good "translationally-invariant-solid" description of both charged Fermi and Bose systems in this exact Wigner crystal regime.

Physical review. B, Condensed matter•Nov 15, 1982•142 citations

Anisotropic fermionic quasiparticles

Seongjin Ahn, S. Das Sarma

We have carried out a comprehensive investigation of the quasiparticle properties of a two-dimensional electron gas, interacting via the long-range Coulomb interaction in the presence of bare mass anisotropy (i.e., with an elliptic noninteracting Fermi surface) by calculating the self-energy, the spectral function, the scattering rate, and the effective mass within the leading-order dynamical self-energy approximation. Our theory is exact in the high-density limit. We find anisotropic features of quasiparticle properties that are not captured by the commonly used isotropic approximation where the anisotropic effective mass is replaced by the isotropic averaged density-of-states mass. Some of these interesting results are as follows: (1) The many-body renormalization of the quasiparticle spectrum becomes highly anisotropic as the quasiparticle energy increases away from the Fermi energy; (2) the interaction-induced inelastic-scattering rate features a strong anisotropy, exhibiting an abrupt jump at different injected energies depending on the momentum direction of the injected electron; (3) the effective-mass enhancement is larger (smaller) for the light (heavy) mass, showing that the anisotropy is reduced by interactions. Our results and analysis show that the unjustified neglect of the mass anisotropy can lead to an incorrect description of quasiparticle properties of the anisotropic system and inaccurate estimates of physical quantities of interest although the use of an equivalent isotropic approximation using the density-of-states effective mass as is commonly and uncritically performed in the literature, works as a reasonable approximation in many situations. In addition to the complete random phase approximation theory for the anisotropic quasiparticles, we also provide a theory using the simpler plasmon-pole approximation, commenting on its validity for anisotropic self-energy calculations. We comment also on the interaction effect on the Fermi-surface topology, finding that the elliptic shape of the bare Fermi surface is preserved with suppressed ellipticity in the interacting system to a high degree of accuracy except in the very strongly interacting limit (and for very high bare mass anisotropy). Our theory provides a complete generalization of the existing isotropic many-body theory of interacting electrons to the corresponding anisotropic systems.

arXiv:2011.02481•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Jan 8, 2021•9 citations

Modelling an infinite nucleonic system. Static and dynamical properties. Study of density fluctuations

D. Idier, M. Farine, B. Rémaud +1 more

For one decade, several fields in physics as well microscopic as macroscopic benefit from the computational particle-models (astrophysics, electronics, fluids mechanics...). In particular, the nuclear matter offers an interesting challenge as many body problem, owing to the quantal nature of its components and the complexity of the in-medium interaction. Using a model derived from semi-classical Vlasov equation and the projection of the Wigner function on a Gaussian coherent states basis (pseudo-particles), static and dynamical properties of nuclear matter are studied, featuring the growing of bulk instabilities in dilute matter. Using different zero and finite range effective interactions, the effect of the model parameters upon the relation total energy - density - temperature and surface energy of the pseudo-particles fluid is pointed out. The dynamical feature is first based upon a model of the 2-body Uehling-Ulhenbeck collisionnal term. A study of the relaxation of a nucleonic system is performed. At last, the pseudo-particle model is used in order to extract time scale for the growing of density fluctuations. This process is supposed to be a possible way to clusterization during heavy nuclei collisions.

Annales de Physique•Jan 1, 1994•22 citations

Dielectric Formulation of the Nuclear Many-Body Problem

O Mitran

It is known in the case of an electron gas that the Coulomb force between electrons is screened due to the density variation around the electrons. In a similar way the force acting between nucleons in nuclear matter may be appreciably different from the free nucleon-nucleon interactions. The main theme of this thesis is to examine the "Screening" effect of the nuclear force. To this end, first the dielectric formulation of the theory of an electron gas is reviewed. Relationship among the chain-diagram approximation, the random phase approximation and the dieledtric formulation is discussed in detail. These techniques are then applied to nuclear matter taking the one-pion exchange potential as an example. It is found that the screening effect on the nuclear force in nuclear matter is indeed quite appreciable. The validity of the approximations is discussed.

•Jun 1, 1971•0 citations

Spectral properties of nuclear matter

Piotr Bożek

We review self-consistent spectral methods for nuclear matter calculations. The in-medium T -matrix approach is conserving and thermodynamically consistent. It gives both the global and the single-particle properties the system. The T -matrix approximation allows to address the pairing phenomenon in cold nuclear matter. A generalization of nuclear matter calculations to the super.uid phase is discussed and numerical results are presented for this case. The linear response of a correlated system going beyond the Hartree-Fock+ Random-Phase-Approximation (RPA) scheme is studied. The polarization is obtained by solving a consistent Bethe-Salpeter (BS) equation for the coupling of dressed nucleons to an external field. We find that multipair contributions are important for the spin(isospin) response when the interaction is spin(isospin) dependent.

arXiv:nucl-th/0508063•Journal of Physics Conference Series•Apr 1, 2006•0 citations

The Luttinger liquid

C. Di Castro, Roberto Raimondi

For pure fermionic systems, and in the absence of symmetry breaking (e.g. magnetism, superconductivity, …), two types of metallic phases are well established: (i) the “normal” Fermi liquid phase in d = 3 presented in Chapters 12 and 19 via the response and the Green functions techniques; and (ii) the “anomalous” Luttinger liquid phase in d = 1 originally formulated with the bosonization technique by which the fermionic operators are represented in terms of “bosonic” density operators (Luther and Peschel (1974); Haldane (1981)) with the exact solution (Mattis and Lieb (1965)) of the Tomonaga–Luttinger model (Tomonaga (1950); Luttinger (1963)) discussed inmany reviews and books (see for instance the book by Giamarchi (2004)). Here, to stress similarities and differences between the Fermi liquid and the Luttinger liquid, we will follow the alternative route of response and Green functions techniques (Dzyaloshinskii and Larkin (1973), Di Castro and Metzner (1991), Metzner et al. (1998)) and add a few comments on the renormalization group approach (Metzner and Di Castro (1993)). As we have seen in Chapters 12 and 19, the Fermi liquid is described asymptotically by the free low-lying single-particle excitations, i.e., the quasiparticles with a zero-kelvin discontinuous occupation number in momentum space n k (see Eq. (18.54)) at a well defined Fermi surface (k = k F ): where here k F> and k F< indicate the limit k → k F from above and below. This discontinuity still marks the Fermi surface in the interacting system. The finite reduction of the single-particle spectral weight z kF with respect to the Fermi gas (z kF = 1) is given by the finite (i.e. non-critical) “wavefunction renormalization” (see Eq. (18.94)). The presence of the discontinuity at the Fermi surface, together with the Pauli principle, compel the inverse quasiparticle lifetime to be τ −1 ≈ max( T 2 , ϵ 2 ), where _ is the deviation of the energy of the quasiparticle from the Fermi energy. The energy uncertainty ħτ −1 due to the finite lifetime of a quasiparticle near the Fermi surface is small compared to its energy ϵ , and the quasiparticle concept is well defined. All the momentum transferring scattering processes become asymptotically ineffective, as derived phenomenologically in Chapter 12 and confirmed microscopically in Chapter 19.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Aug 27, 2015•0 citations
Properties of the inverse lifetime 1\ensuremathτ\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ1​ of quasiparticles in an infinite system of nucleons ("nuclear matter") interacting via the exchange of a neutral scalar boson are studied in the dielectric formulation of the many-body problem. It is shown that the polarization of the nuclear medium plays an essential role in determining 1\ensuremathτ\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ1​. The presence of the medium mediates the interaction between two nucleons in it through the introduction of an effective "dielectric constant" for nuclear matter. The interaction becomes "dressed" in a fashion analogous to, but different in its details from, the screening of the Coulomb interaction between electrons in metals. Calculations of 1\ensuremathτ\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ1​ are made for nuclear matter both in second-order perturbation theory, and using the fully dressed interaction calculated in the random-phase approximation (RPA). The RPA estimate is lower by about a factor of 3 over a wide range of momenta and is in good agreement with empirical optical-model estimates of 1\ensuremathτ\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ1​. The second-order perturbation estimate is by contrast entirely inadequate, emphasizing the importance of taking the polarization effects into account for scattering processes at actual nuclear densities. The use of a dielectric constant for the medium also introduces another feature into the properties of 1\ensuremathτ\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ1​. The behavior of 1\ensuremathτ\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ1​ near the Fermi surface now becomes sensitive to whether or not the interacting ground state is unstable with respect to a permanent density fluctuation. If it is, then 1\ensuremathτ\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ1​ behaves like (p\ensuremath−pFp\ensuremath{-}{p}_{F}p\ensuremath−pF​) instead of (p\ensuremath−pF)2{(p\ensuremath{-}{p}_{F})}^{2}(p\ensuremath−pF​)2 near the Fermi surface (pF{p}_{F}pF​ is the Fermi momentum). This is not a new physical result, but rather a reflection of the inadequacy of the RPA if the system becomes unstable. It is shown that as the momentum increases the effect of such an instability, if present, decreases, and becomes entirely negligible when p\ensuremath≳2pFp\ensuremath{\gtrsim}\sqrt{2}{p}_{F}p\ensuremath≳2​pF​.
In this second work in a series of papers the coupled-cluster or exp(S)\mathrm{exp}(S)exp(S) formalism is applied to the problem of ground-state correlations in the one-component Fermi plasma. The main approximation employed is the so-called SUB2 approximation for the two-body subsystem correlation operator S2{S}_{2}S2​ which provides a measure of the two-particle---two-hole component in the true ground-state wave function, and in which the coupling to larger subsystems is neglected. The SUB2 equations for Fermi systems are brought into tractable form by a "state-averaging" procedure which we develop by analogy with the comparable Bose equations, and which is shown by comparison with earlier exact results to be accurate in the metallic density regime at about the 1% level. Our final results for metallic densities include the completely integrated and self-consistent effects of the terms which by themselves generate (i) the random-phase approximation (RPA) and its associated exact long-range screening effects, (ii) the extra random-phase approximation exchange terms necessary to keep the RPA explicitly antisymmetric, (iii) the self-consistent particle-particle ladders (LAD) that describe two-particle scattering within the many-body medium and which describe the exact short-range behavior, (iv) a class of particle-hole ladder terms, and (v) the self-consistent hole-potential terms. Particular attention is paid to the important effects caused by the interference at intermediate separations of the long-range RPA and the short-range LAD effects. By comparison with recent and essentially exact stochastic simulations of the many-body Schr\"odinger equation, our results are seen to be accurate to about 1% for metallic densities, and hence to provide what is probably the currently best microscopic description available for this system. We show also that even in the low-density limit the SUB2 approximation provides a good "translationally-invariant-solid" description of both charged Fermi and Bose systems in this exact Wigner crystal regime.
We have carried out a comprehensive investigation of the quasiparticle properties of a two-dimensional electron gas, interacting via the long-range Coulomb interaction in the presence of bare mass anisotropy (i.e., with an elliptic noninteracting Fermi surface) by calculating the self-energy, the spectral function, the scattering rate, and the effective mass within the leading-order dynamical self-energy approximation. Our theory is exact in the high-density limit. We find anisotropic features of quasiparticle properties that are not captured by the commonly used isotropic approximation where the anisotropic effective mass is replaced by the isotropic averaged density-of-states mass. Some of these interesting results are as follows: (1) The many-body renormalization of the quasiparticle spectrum becomes highly anisotropic as the quasiparticle energy increases away from the Fermi energy; (2) the interaction-induced inelastic-scattering rate features a strong anisotropy, exhibiting an abrupt jump at different injected energies depending on the momentum direction of the injected electron; (3) the effective-mass enhancement is larger (smaller) for the light (heavy) mass, showing that the anisotropy is reduced by interactions. Our results and analysis show that the unjustified neglect of the mass anisotropy can lead to an incorrect description of quasiparticle properties of the anisotropic system and inaccurate estimates of physical quantities of interest although the use of an equivalent isotropic approximation using the density-of-states effective mass as is commonly and uncritically performed in the literature, works as a reasonable approximation in many situations. In addition to the complete random phase approximation theory for the anisotropic quasiparticles, we also provide a theory using the simpler plasmon-pole approximation, commenting on its validity for anisotropic self-energy calculations. We comment also on the interaction effect on the Fermi-surface topology, finding that the elliptic shape of the bare Fermi surface is preserved with suppressed ellipticity in the interacting system to a high degree of accuracy except in the very strongly interacting limit (and for very high bare mass anisotropy). Our theory provides a complete generalization of the existing isotropic many-body theory of interacting electrons to the corresponding anisotropic systems.
For one decade, several fields in physics as well microscopic as macroscopic benefit from the computational particle-models (astrophysics, electronics, fluids mechanics...). In particular, the nuclear matter offers an interesting challenge as many body problem, owing to the quantal nature of its components and the complexity of the in-medium interaction. Using a model derived from semi-classical Vlasov equation and the projection of the Wigner function on a Gaussian coherent states basis (pseudo-particles), static and dynamical properties of nuclear matter are studied, featuring the growing of bulk instabilities in dilute matter. Using different zero and finite range effective interactions, the effect of the model parameters upon the relation total energy - density - temperature and surface energy of the pseudo-particles fluid is pointed out. The dynamical feature is first based upon a model of the 2-body Uehling-Ulhenbeck collisionnal term. A study of the relaxation of a nucleonic system is performed. At last, the pseudo-particle model is used in order to extract time scale for the growing of density fluctuations. This process is supposed to be a possible way to clusterization during heavy nuclei collisions.
It is known in the case of an electron gas that the Coulomb force between electrons is screened due to the density variation around the electrons. In a similar way the force acting between nucleons in nuclear matter may be appreciably different from the free nucleon-nucleon interactions. The main theme of this thesis is to examine the "Screening" effect of the nuclear force. To this end, first the dielectric formulation of the theory of an electron gas is reviewed. Relationship among the chain-diagram approximation, the random phase approximation and the dieledtric formulation is discussed in detail. These techniques are then applied to nuclear matter taking the one-pion exchange potential as an example. It is found that the screening effect on the nuclear force in nuclear matter is indeed quite appreciable. The validity of the approximations is discussed.
We review self-consistent spectral methods for nuclear matter calculations. The in-medium T -matrix approach is conserving and thermodynamically consistent. It gives both the global and the single-particle properties the system. The T -matrix approximation allows to address the pairing phenomenon in cold nuclear matter. A generalization of nuclear matter calculations to the super.uid phase is discussed and numerical results are presented for this case. The linear response of a correlated system going beyond the Hartree-Fock+ Random-Phase-Approximation (RPA) scheme is studied. The polarization is obtained by solving a consistent Bethe-Salpeter (BS) equation for the coupling of dressed nucleons to an external field. We find that multipair contributions are important for the spin(isospin) response when the interaction is spin(isospin) dependent.
For pure fermionic systems, and in the absence of symmetry breaking (e.g. magnetism, superconductivity, …), two types of metallic phases are well established: (i) the “normal” Fermi liquid phase in d = 3 presented in Chapters 12 and 19 via the response and the Green functions techniques; and (ii) the “anomalous” Luttinger liquid phase in d = 1 originally formulated with the bosonization technique by which the fermionic operators are represented in terms of “bosonic” density operators (Luther and Peschel (1974); Haldane (1981)) with the exact solution (Mattis and Lieb (1965)) of the Tomonaga–Luttinger model (Tomonaga (1950); Luttinger (1963)) discussed inmany reviews and books (see for instance the book by Giamarchi (2004)). Here, to stress similarities and differences between the Fermi liquid and the Luttinger liquid, we will follow the alternative route of response and Green functions techniques (Dzyaloshinskii and Larkin (1973), Di Castro and Metzner (1991), Metzner et al. (1998)) and add a few comments on the renormalization group approach (Metzner and Di Castro (1993)). As we have seen in Chapters 12 and 19, the Fermi liquid is described asymptotically by the free low-lying single-particle excitations, i.e., the quasiparticles with a zero-kelvin discontinuous occupation number in momentum space n k (see Eq. (18.54)) at a well defined Fermi surface (k = k F ): where here k F> and k F< indicate the limit k → k F from above and below. This discontinuity still marks the Fermi surface in the interacting system. The finite reduction of the single-particle spectral weight z kF with respect to the Fermi gas (z kF = 1) is given by the finite (i.e. non-critical) “wavefunction renormalization” (see Eq. (18.94)). The presence of the discontinuity at the Fermi surface, together with the Pauli principle, compel the inverse quasiparticle lifetime to be τ −1 ≈ max( T 2 , ϵ 2 ), where _ is the deviation of the energy of the quasiparticle from the Fermi energy. The energy uncertainty ħτ −1 due to the finite lifetime of a quasiparticle near the Fermi surface is small compared to its energy ϵ , and the quasiparticle concept is well defined. All the momentum transferring scattering processes become asymptotically ineffective, as derived phenomenologically in Chapter 12 and confirmed microscopically in Chapter 19.