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Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Derivation of the Brueckner many-body theory

Jeffrey Goldstone

Published Feb 26, 1957• 1,265 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract An exact formal solution is obtained to the problem of a system of fermions in interaction. This solution is expressed in a form which avoids the problem of unlinked clusters in manybody theory. The technique of Feynman graphs is used to derive the series and to define linked terms. The graphs are those appropriate to a system of many fermions and are used to give a new derivation of the Hartree-Fock and Brueckner methods for this problem.

DOI
10.1098/rspa.1957.0037

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Progress of Theoretical Physics•Mar 1, 1969•0 citations
Abstract An exact formal solution is obtained to the problem of a system of fermions in interaction. This solution is expressed in a form which avoids the problem of unlinked clusters in manybody theory. The technique of Feynman graphs is used to derive the series and to define linked terms. The graphs are those appropriate to a system of many fermions and are used to give a new derivation of the Hartree-Fock and Brueckner methods for this problem.
The method of superposition of configurations, which provides a general solution of the quantum-mechanical many-particle problem (for fermions), is reformulated so that equations may be compared with those used in the Brueckner theory. Important differences occur in application to finite or nonuniform systems for which the Hartree-Fock or Brueckner self-consistent orbitals are not plane waves. In such cases nonvanishing single-particle matrix elements occur which cannot be described by the Brueckner formalism based on a two-particle operator. Equations for an effective two-particle operator, equivalent to the variational equations of the method of superposition of configurations, are derived for a basis of Hartree-Fock orbitals. At the expense of making the orbital basis dependent upon the effective two-particle operator, the orbital basis can be determined by a condition which is essentially that of the Brueckner method. This condition removes a class of matrix elements which do not necessarily vanish in the Hartree-Fock basis although they would be neglected to second order in a perturbation calculation starting from the Hartree-Fock wave function. The equations for the effective two-particle operator are formally the same in both cases but lead to different operators because of the different choice of basis. In neither case can the equations be written in terms of products of such operators, a formalism assumed in the Brueckner theory. It is shown that the Brueckner condition is not equivalent to the condition which would determine the best possible orbital basis for the form of wave function implied by the use of an effective operator dependent on two particles only. The argument of the present paper is limited to systems with a finite number of particles, since the variational principle used here is not applicable without modification to systems with an infinite number of particles.
A formulation of the energy eigenvalue problem for a many-particle system is presented in several alternative forms and, following Brueckner and his collaborators, the energy of the system is expressed in terms of solutions to the two-body problem. This work bears considerable resemblance to Brueckner's "linked cluster" expansion. The present expansion is derived with the aid of an ordering operator and involves a sequence of "nearest neighbor" interactions. The particles tend to form "chains," the sequence of approximations involving "two-particle chains," "three-particle chains," etc. The rapidity of convergence of the method depends on the particle density and "temperature" and on the nature of the force between particles. The method lends itself readily to use in statistical mechanics. Some applications to the calculation of the equation of state of a gas are included.
The general form of the energy of the ground state of a many-fermion system is shown to be exactly of the form proposed by Brueckner and Bethe, without approximation. In a variational treatment, if the trial wave function is picked containing only pair correlations, together with all possible unlinked pairs, it is described by a two-body excitation matrix 〈m1m2∣A∣p1p2〉〈{m}_{1}{m}_{2}|A|{p}_{1}{p}_{2}〉〈m1​m2​∣A∣p1​p2​〉. Variation of this matrix in the Ritz-Rayleigh principle yields a set of integral equations of the scattering type for the matrix AAA. Hole-state energies are given self-consistently in terms of the matrix AAA, but particle-state energies are Hartree-Fock energies. This may be corrected for by widely enlarging the class of terms admitted into the wave function. If the approximation is then made of omitting a class of terms, defined as cross-linked clusters in $〈\ensuremath{\psi}|H|\ensuremath{\psi}〉$, the particle-state energies are easily renormalized. Variation then leads to an infinite hierarchy of integral equations.
Perturbation theoretic equations for several properties of the zero-temperature many-fermion normal system are rederived from general considerations. Though none of the equations are new, some of the derivations are, and taken together they form a brief and simple summary of many-fermion relations and a basis for further investigation of the basic perturbation description of the many-fermion normal system: the Brueckner-Goldstone expansion. A "change-of-parameter" technique is then developed and employed to investigate the possible use of the true momentum density instead of the unperturbed Fermi distribution in the Brueckner-Goldstone expansion and in the Brueckner KKK-matrix approximation. The result is a simpler, approximate perturbation series for the interaction energy, whose accuracy for nuclear matter is estimated to be approximately \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2 MeV. The new approximation is exact to the fourth order.
The independent-particle model in the theory of many-particle systems is studied by means of the self-consistent-field (SCF) idea. After a review of the characteristic features of the Hartree and Hartree-Fock schemes, the extension of the SCF method developed by Brueckner is further refined by introducing the exact reaction operator containing all correlation effects. This operator is here simply defined by means of the partitioning technique, and, if the SCF potentials are derived from this operator, one obtains a formalism which is completely analogous to the Hartree scheme but which still renders the exact energy and the exact wave function. An elementary derivation of the linked-cluster theorem is given, and finally the inclusion of various symmetry properties is discussed.