This chapter focuses on the mathematical description of Fermionic systems. It first describes the usual formalism of second quantization in terms of operators on anti-symmetric Fock space. It then studies quadratic Hamiltonians and their corresponding equilibrium states. It presents a more abstract algebraic approach, suitable for the description of infinite systems: the CAR-formalism. It discusses the main properties of quasi-free states and automorphisms; they are the Fermionic counterparts of classical Gaussian measures and are widely applicable in approximate or effective treatments.
This chapter focuses on the mathematical description of Fermionic systems. It first describes the usual formalism of second quantization in terms of operators on anti-symmetric Fock space. It then studies quadratic Hamiltonians and their corresponding equilibrium states. It presents a more abstract algebraic approach, suitable for the description of infinite systems: the CAR-formalism. It discusses the main properties of quasi-free states and automorphisms; they are the Fermionic counterparts of classical Gaussian measures and are widely applicable in approximate or effective treatments.
This thesis is concerned with the properties of dynamical systems with Hamiltonians which are general quadratic combinations of classical or quantum canonical variables or of Boson or Fermion annihilation and creation operators.Chapter I, consisting of six sections, deals mainly with sets of canonical forms for quadratic Hamiltonians under the action of the group of linear canonical transformations.By viewing the group of C.C.R.Bogoliubov transformations as Sp(2tf, i?) , a full set of canonical Boson Hamiltonians, labelled by the invariants for symplectic conjugacy classes, is obtained.Since the conjugacy class of a real orthogonal matrix is determined by its eigenvalues, there is only one type of canonical form for quadratic Fermion Hamiltonians.Unlike the Fermion case, indefinite Boson Hamiltonians can not in general be reduced to a sum of quasi-particle number operators.However, it is shown how spectral theory in Krein space rigorizes the full reduction of a strictly positive quadratic Boson Hamiltonian for which the single particle space is infinite dimensional.In the case of infinite degrees of freedom, there are various existence criteria for a unitary operator which implements a given Bogoliubov transformation and the equivalence of these is discussed in Section 6.Cahpter II, consisting of seven sections, applies the techniques of Chapter I to algebraic quantization.The Boson commutation relations , among formal mode operators obtained in heuristic quantization, are shown to be incompatible with the canonical commutation relations among conjugate variables unless the motion is stable.Segal quantization of any real
This chapter presents an analogous formalism which is developed for systems composed of many identical particles. Another extremely useful basis of the Fock space is the basis of coherent states which is analogous to the basis of position eigenstates in quantum mechanics. A crucial property of the coherent states is their overcompleteness in the Fock space, that is, the fact that any vector of the Fock space can be expanded in terms of coherent states. Boson coherent states are the physical states which emerge naturally when taking the classical limit of quantum mechanics or of a quantum field theory. In contrast, Fermion coherent states are not contained in the Fermion Fock space, they are not physically observable, and there are no classical fields of Fermions. In the subsequent development, this physical difference will give rise to some significant differences in the treatment of Bosons and Fermions.
Suppose that we have a state ψ on the polynomial algebra generated by the fields ϕ ( y ) satisfying the CCR or CAR relations. For simplicity, assume that ψ is even , that is, vanishes on odd polynomials. Clearly, this state determines a bilinear form on Y given by the “2-point function” We say that a state ψ is quasi-free if all expectation values can be expressed in terms of (17.1) by the sum over all pairings. This chapter is devoted to a study of (even) quasi-free states, both bosonic and fermionic. This is an important class of states, often used in physical applications. Fock vacuum states belong to this class. It also includes Gibbs states of quadratic Hamiltonians. Representations obtained by the GNS construction from quasi-free states will be called quasi-free representations . They are usually reducible. Many interesting concepts from the theory of von Neumann algebras can be nicely illustrated in terms of quasi-free representations. Quasi-free states can be easily realized on Fock spaces, using the so-called Araki–Woods, resp. Araki–Wyss representations in the bosonic, resp. fermionic case. Under some additional assumptions, in particular in the case of a finite number of degrees of freedom, these representations can be obtained as follows. First we consider a Fock space equipped with a quadratic Hamiltonian. Then we perform the GNS construction with respect to the corresponding Gibbs state. Finally, we apply an appropriate Bogoliubov rotation.
Abstract Chapter 2 provides a review of pertinent aspects of the quantum mechanics of systems composed of many particles. It focuses on the foundations of quantum many-particle physics, the many-particle Hilbert spaces to describe large assemblies of interacting systems composed of Bosons or Fermions, which lead to the versatile formalism of second quantization as a convenient and eminently practical language ubiquitous in the mathematical formulation of the theory of many-particle systems of quantum matter. The main objects in which the formalism of second quantization is expressed are the Bosonic or Fermionic creation and annihilation operators that become, in the position basis, the quantum field operators.
The aim of this paper is to give a self-contained and unified presentation of a fermionic coherent state theory with the necessary mathematical details, discussing their definition, properties and some applications. After defining Grassmann algebras, it is possible to get a classical analog for the fermionic degrees of freedom in a quantum system. Following the basic work of Berezin (1966 The Method of Second Quantization (New York: Academic); 1987 Introduction to Superanalysis (Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company)), we show that we can compute with Grassmann numbers as we do with complex numbers: derivation, integration, Fourier transform. After that we show that we have quantization formulas for fermionic observables. In particular, there exists a Moyal product formula. As an application, we consider explicit computations for propagators with quadratic Hamiltonians in annihilation and creation operators. We prove a Mehler formula for the propagator and Mehlig–Wilkinson-type formulas for the covariant and contravariant symbols of ‘metaplectic’ transformations for fermionic states. This article is part of a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical devoted to ‘Coherent states: mathematical and physical aspects’.
The basic ideas of second quantization and Fock space are extended to density operator states, used in treatments of open many‐body systems. This can be done for fermions and bosons. While the former only requires the use of a non‐orthogonal basis, the latter requires the introduction of a dual set of spaces. In both cases an operator algebra closely resembling the canonical one is developed and used to define the dual sets of bases. We here concentrated on the bosonic case where the unboundedness of the operators requires the definitions of dual spaces to support the pair of bases. Some applications, mainly to non‐equilibrium steady states, will be mentioned.