Abstract The main task of microscopic many-body theory is to provide an understanding and an explanation of properties of macroscopic systems from no other information than the properties of the underlying Hamiltonian, the particle statistics, and the macroscopic geometry of the system. Variational wave functions have been a very successful technique for examining the ground state and dynamic properties of dense quantum fluids. Specifically the “optimized (Fermi)-hypernetted chain” ((F)HNC-EL) hierarchy of approximations reproduces, for simple interactions like electrons and quantum fluids, the most basic features of a self-bound many-body system, namely binding, saturation, and spinodal decomposition. The relationships between Green’s functions based perturbation theory and variational wave functions have been clarified in much detail in the past. In the language of Feynman diagrams, a self-consistent summation of ring- and ladder-diagrams is the minimum requirement for a satisfactory microscopic description of these basic features. Realistic nucleon–nucleon interactions pose further problems: The most difficult aspect of the nuclear many-body problem is caused by the form of the microscopic nucleon–nucleon interaction which depends at least on the spin, isospin, the relative orientation and angular momentum of the interacting particles. Simple variational methods as used for electrons and quantum fluids are inadequate. Correlation functions that have the same structure as the interactions lead to so-called “commutator diagrams” that have, so far, been mostly neglected. We have shown in the past that these corrections can be very important if the two-body interactions are very different in different spin- or isospin channels. To deal with the problem of realistic nuclear interactions we have combined techniques of the Jastrow–Feenberg variational method and the local parquet-diagram theory. In the language of diagrammatic perturbation theory, “commutator diagrams” can be identified with non-parquet diagrams. We examine the physical processes described by these terms and include the relevant diagrams in a way that is suggested by the Jastrow–Feenberg approach. We show that the corrections from non-parquet contributions are, at short distances, larger than all other many-body effects. We examine here neutron matter as a prototype of systems with state-dependent interactions. Calculations are carried out for neutrons interacting via the so-called
v8 v 8 version of four popular interactions. We determine the structure and effective interactions and apply the method to the calculation of the energetics, structure and dynamic properties such as the single-particle self-energy and the dynamic response functions as well as BCS pairing in both singlet and triplet states. We find that many-body correlations lead to a strong reduction of the spin-orbit interaction, and, therefore, to a suppression of the
3P2 3 P 2 and
3P2 3 P 2 -
3F2 3 F 2 gaps. We also find pairing in
3P0 3 P 0 states; the strength of the pairing gap depends sensitively on the potential model employed.
We develop a manifestly microscopic method to deal with strongly interacting nuclear systems that have different interactions in spin-singlet and spin-triplet states. In a first step we analyze variational wave functions that have been suggested to describe such systems and demonstrate that the so-called commutator contributions can have important effects whenever the interactions in the spin-singlet and the spin-triplet states are very different. We then identify these contributions as terms that correspond, in the language of perturbation theory, to non-parquet diagrams. We include these diagrams in a way that is suggested by the Jastrow-Feenberg approach and show that the corrections from non-parquet contributions are, at short distances, larger than all other many-body effects.
The ground state of a many-boson system is studied within the range of the Bijl-Dingle-Jastrow-type description when the radial distribution function
g(r) differs little from its asymptotic value. The treatment of the problem is based on the development of power series in $\ensuremath{\alpha}=1\ensuremath{-}g(0)$ for all physical quantities which depend on the particle density. The
n-particle distribution functions
p(n) are evaluated to order ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{4}$ as functionals in the
g(r) function for
n=3and4 using the cluster-expansion procedure outlined by Abe. These results are used in connection with the improvement of the ground-state description when the wave function is not the optimum choice. Using
p(3) function obtained, the Bogoliubov-Born-Green-Kirkwood-Yvon equation is solved, also to order ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{4}$, for the two-particle correlation function
U(r), and the first two leading corrections to the hypernetted-chain (HNC) approximation are obtained. The variational calculation along with the series expansion for
U(r) yields formulas for the ground-state properties, including some corrections to known results. For a charged boson gas, numerical values of
U(r),
p(3),
p(4), and the ground-state energy are computed using the Gaussian approximation for
g(r), and the results show that the errors associated with the HNC approximation are small. A brief discussion is presented on the method of determining the general expansion coefficients of the correlation functions of
p(n) in terms of
g(r).
We present a perturbative treatment of Jastrow-type correlation factors which focus on an accurate description of short-range correlations. Our approach is closely related to coupled cluster perturbation theory with the essential difference that we start from a variational formulation for the energy. Such kind of perturbation theory is especially suited for multiscale bases, such as wavelets, which provide sparse representations for Jastrow factors. Envisaged applications in solid-state physics are confined many-particle systems such as electrons or multiexcitons in quantum dots. The resulting Jastrow factors can be further used as trial wave functions in quantum Monte Carlo calculations for these systems. First applications to a screened homogeneous Fermi gas model demonstrate that first-order Jastrow factors already recover 95% of the correlation energy in variational Monte Carlo calculations over a fairly large range of densities and screening parameters. The corresponding second- and third-order perturbation energies turned out to be more sensitive to the specific choice of the model parameters. Furthermore, we have compared our first-order Jastrow factors with those obtained from Fermi hypernetted chain calculations, where excellent agreement at short and intermediate interparticle distances has been observed.
We present a perturbative treatment of Jastrow-type correlation factors which focuses on an accurate description of short-range correlations. Our approach is closely related to coupled cluster perturbation theory with the essential difference that we start from a variational formulation for the energy. Such kind of perturbation theory is especially suited for multiscale bases, like wavelets, which provide sparse representations for Jatrow factors. Envisaged applications in solid state physics are confined many-particle systems like electrons or multi excitons in quantum dots. The resulting Jastrow factors can be further used as trial wavefunctions in quantum Monte Carlo calculations for these systems. First applications to a screened homogeneous Fermi gas model demonstrate that already first order Jastrow factors recover 95 % of the correlation energy in variational Monte Carlo calculations over a fairly large range of densities and screening parameters. The corresponding second and third order perturbation energies turned out to be more sensitive to the specific choice of the model parameters. Furthermore, we have compared our first order Jastrow factors with those obtained from Fermi hypernetted chain calculations, where excellent agreement at short and intermediate inter-particle distances has been observed. 1
We develop the variational/parquet diagram approach to the structure of nuclear systems with strongly state-dependent interactions. For that purpose, we combine ideas of the general Jastrow-Feenberg variational method and the local parquet-diagram theory for bosons with state-dependent interactions [R. A. Smith and A. D. Jackson, Nucl. Phys. A 476, 448 (1988)]. The most tedious aspect of variational approaches, namely the symmetrization of an operator dependent variational wave function, is thereby avoided. We carry out calculations for neutron matter interacting via the Reid and Argonne
v6 models of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. While the equation of state is a rather robust quantity that comes out reasonably well even in very simplistic approaches, we show that effective interactions, which are the essential input for calculating dynamic properties, depend sensitively on the quality of the treatment of the many-body problem.