In order to calculate the average value of a physical quantity containing also many-particle interactions in a system of
N antisymmetric particles, a set of generalized density matrices are defined. In order to permit the investigation of the same physical situation in two complementary spaces, the Hermitean density matrix of order
k has two sets of indices of each
k variables, and it is further antisymmetric in each set of these indices.Every normalizable antisymmetric wave function may be expanded in a series of determinants of order
N over all ordered configurations formed from a basic complete set of one-particle functions ${\ensuremath{\psi}}_{k}$, which gives a representation of the wave function and its density matrices also in the discrete
k-space. The coefficients in an expansion of an eigenfunction to a particular operator may be determined by the variation principle, leading to the ordinary secular equation of the method of configurational interaction. It is shown that the first-order density matrix may be brought to diagonal form, which defines the "natural spin-orbitals" associated with the system. The situation is then partly characterized by the corresponding occupation numbers, which are shown to lie between 0 and 1 and to assume the value 1, only if the corresponding spin-orbital occurs in all configurations necessary for describing the situation. If the system has exactly
N spin-orbitals which are fully occupied, the total wave function may be reduced to a single Slater determinant. However, due to the mutual interaction between the particles, this limiting case is never physically realized, but the introduction of natural spin-orbitals leads then instead to a configurational expansion of most rapid convergence.In case the basic set is of finite order
M, the best choice of this set is determined by a form of extended Hartree-Fock equations. It is shown that, in this case, the natural spin-orbitals approximately fulfill some equations previously proposed by Slater.
For describing the pair correlations of the electrons in the many- electron systems a new method of reducing the many-particle problem to the two- particle problem is developed. Instead of the wave function, one- and twoparticle density matrices are used. In the process of deriving an equation for the two-particle wave function, which describes a pair of electrons in the field of the others, a transition to the second quantization representation is accomplished. The solution of the obtained equation is carried out with the help of perturbation theory. (auth)
The quantum
N-electron structure problem is expressed as a classical
N-body structure problem plus a quantum many-body problem with a reduced number of variables. This forms the foundation of a method for solving the electronic structure problem using
k-electron distribution functions instead of many-electron wave functions. The method represents a unified approach to the entire hierarchy of generalized density-functional theories, beginning with standard density-functional theory
(k=1) and pair density-functional theory
(k=2) and culminating in an exact treatment of the entire
N-electron system
(k=N).
A model many-fermion Hamiltonian is presented for which the ground state is asymptotically an Antisymmetrized Geminal Powers (AGP) wave function with largest possible greatest eigenvalue for its two-particle reduced density matrix. Closed analytical expressions and plane-wave expansions are presented for the generating geminal of the AGP ground state and for its one-particle reduced density matrix. The natural orbitals for this generating geminal are plane waves. The generating geminal shows intensely local character in its intracule and corresponds to the formation of a quasi-boson from two fermions. One may appropriately modify this generating geminal to introduce zero occupation numbers of its one-particle reduced density matrix and to make all the nonzero occupation numbers of its one-particle reduced density matrix equal, thus making this geminal a generator of an extreme AGP wave function, with an extreme large eigenvalue for its two-particle reduced density matrix. Closed analytical expressions are also given for this modified geminal and for its one-particle reduced density matrix. The modified generating geminal develops anomolously long “tails” in the intracule function. Nevertheless, both generating geminals introduced here reduce to a renormalized Dirac δ-function of the intracule coordinate, in the appropriate limit. In this limit, both of these generating geminals produce an absolute extreme AGP wave function with the absolute extreme value, N/2, for the Löwdin-normalized occupation number of the generating geminal, and vanishing occupation numbers for all other natural geminals, in the two-particle reduced density matrix of this wavefunction. A demonstration is given showing the formation of quasi-bosons in this ground state and showing their relationship to the generating geminal and to the other natural geminals of the two-particle reduced density matrix of the extreme AGP wave function. The similarities and differences of the features of this model and the accepted models of the superconducting ground state of electrons in metals, and the superfluid ground state of liquid He4 are mentioned.
For a quantum-mechanical system of
N identical fermions, the
N-representability problem is the problem of recognizing whether, for a given pth-order reduced density matrix ${\ensuremath{\Gamma}}^{(p)}(12\ensuremath{\cdots}p|{1}^{\ensuremath{'}}{2}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\cdots}{p}^{\ensuremath{'}})$, there exists an antisymmetric
N-particle wave function $\ensuremath{\Psi}(12\ensuremath{\cdots}N)$ such that ${\ensuremath{\Gamma}}^{(p)}(12\ensuremath{\cdots}p|{1}^{\ensuremath{'}}{2}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\cdots}{p}^{\ensuremath{'}})=({N}{p})\ensuremath{\int}\ensuremath{\Psi}(12\ensuremath{\cdots}N)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\ensuremath{\Psi}}^{*}({1}^{\ensuremath{'}}{2}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\cdots}{p}^{\ensuremath{'}},p+1\ensuremath{\cdots}N){d}_{{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{p+1}}\ensuremath{\cdots}{d}_{{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{N}}$. It is shown that if the Hamiltonian of a system is time-reversal invariant, and the number of particles,
N, is even, the necessary and sufficient condition that an approximate first-order density matrix corresponding to a nondegenerate energy eigenstate be
N-representable is that its natural spin-orbital occupation numbers be equal in pairs.