A periodic cluster perturbation theory is used to investigate a fermion system. The theory is based on the dynamical cluster approximation with relaxing of self-consistency. Within the periodic cluster perturbation theory the self-energy is approximated by the self-energy of an isolated cluster with periodic boundary conditions. The small parameter of the theory is of order of
1∕Lc, where
Lc is the linear size of the cluster. It is found that within the periodic cluster perturbation theory, quantities averaged over the cluster converge rapidly with corrections
O(1∕Lc2), whereas within the cluster perturbation theory, they converge with corrections
O(1∕Lc).
Quantum periodic cluster methods for strongly correlated electron systems are reformulated and developed. The reformulation and development are based on a canonical transformation which periodizes the fermions in the cluster space. The dynamical cluster approximation and the cellular dynamical mean field theory are related each other through the canonical transformation. A cluster perturbation theory with periodic boundary conditions is developed. It is found that the periodic cluster perturbation theory converges rapidly with corrections
O(1/Lc2), where
Lc is the linear size of the clusters, whereas the ordinary cluster perturbation theory converges with corrections
O(1/Lc).