In Chapter 9 we applied the second quantization to the Hartree–Fock method. In this chapter we provide the basic aspects of the thermal Green function method, which is convenient for systematic perturbative expansion beyond the mean-field approximation. Several problems in quantum statistical mechanics can be elegantly and compactly described in terms of the so-called Matsubara Green functions (Matsubara (1955); Abrikosov et al. (1963)). Hence, if on one hand, the density matrix description, often used in the previous chapters, has a more direct physical interpretation, on the other hand the Green function method is far more powerful and takes advantage of a handy diagrammatic perturbation expansion. In the following chapters, we rely on the Green function for a more complete treatment of some many-body problems. To be self contained we introduce here this technical chapter with a short presentation of the by now standard Green function method. For a comprehensive treatment we refer the reader to the many books available and in particular to Abrikosov et al. (1963). The Matsubara Green function The main aim of quantum statistical mechanics is the evaluation of the partition function (see Eqs. (6.31) and (6.32)), e.g. in the grand canonical ensemble In the case of quantum gases one can evaluate Ƶ exactly as we did in Chapter 7. In general, the evaluation of the partition function is a difficult task and it is useful to use perturbation theory to obtain approximate solutions. To set up a perturbation theory, one begins by splitting the Hamiltonian as H = H 0 + H i, where H 0 represents the “easy” part, which can be solved exactly. In the second step, one could naturally think of expanding the exponential of the interacting part H i in order to write the partition function as a perturbative series. However, such a procedure requires extreme care due to the non-commutative nature of operators in quantum mechanics. The way of solving this problem is via the “ time ” ordering of operators in each term of the perturbative expansion. It can be shown, as we shall see in the present chapter, that the quantum statistical average of any time-ordered sequence of operators with respect to the unperturbed Hamiltonian H 0 can be expressed in terms of elementary quantum statistical averages of two field operators. Such elementary averages are called Green functions and in this section we introduce the basic definitions concerning them.
Introduction Mathematically, given a linear differential operator L x , one encounters the solution to the inhomogeneous differential equation Here ρ ( x ) is a given source function. For a given boundary condition, we assume a solution to exist. The solution can be reduced to a simpler problem. Let G ( x, y ) is the Green's function. This is a function of x with y a parameter. Take G ( x, y ) to satisfy the same boundary conditions as φ ( x ). Then since An example of L x is, of course, the Schrödinger operator We take ρ ( x ) = V ( x ) ψ ( x , t ), ψ ( x , t ) being the wave function and V ( x ) the potential operator. We are interested in Green's functions taken over from the techniques of quantum field theory (Schweber, 1961; Lifshitz and Petaevskii, 1981). We will concern ourselves particularly with one- and two-time Green's functions, since our principal interest is to show a connection to the calculations of linear response theory (Chapter 15) as well as to quantum kinetic equations. Then we wish to compare the methods with those described in Chapter 4. In this we will follow the work of L. P. Kadanoff and G. Baym (1962) and of L. V. Keldysh (1965) and also Zubarev (1974). We will not discuss equilibrium statistical mechanics utilizing Green's function techniques for many-body problems. The literature is exhaustive (see Abrikosov et al. , 1963; Fetter and Walecka, 1971). A good general introduction is the book by G. D. Mahan (2000). One- and two-time quantum Green's functions and their properties Let us introduce the creation operator ψ † ( r, t ) and annihilation operator ψ ( r, t ) of the second quantization formalism (see Schweber, 1961). They have the equal time commutation rules for Bose and Fermi particles: The Hamiltonian operator for the particles is and the number density of particles at r t is the operator Note that r = ( r 1 … r N ) for (1, 2, 3, …, N ) and V (| r − r ′|) is the pair potential depending, as in Chapter 4, on the scalar distance between the particles.
In the previous chapter we studied the kinematics of many-body systems, and the form of operators representing the physical properties of a system, all of which were embodied by the quantum field. In this chapter we shall study the quantum dynamics of many-body systems, which can also be embodied by the quantum fields. We shall employ the fact that the quantum dynamics of a system, instead of being described in terms of the dynamics of the states or the evolution operator, i.e. as previously done through the Schrödinger equation, can instead be carried by the quantum fields. The quantum dynamics is therefore expressed in terms of the correlation functions or Green's functions of the quantum fields evaluated with respect to some state of the system. In particular we shall consider the general case of quantum dynamics for arbitrary non-equilibrium states. After introducing various types of Green's functions and relating them to measurable quantities, we will discuss the simplifications reigning for the special case of equilibrium states. Quantum dynamics Quantum dynamics can be described in different ways since quantum mechanics is a linear theory and the dynamics described by a unitary transformation of states. This will come in handy in the next chapter when we study a quantum theory in terms of its perturbative expansion using the so-called interaction picture. Here we first discuss the Schrödinger and Heisenberg pictures. The Schrödinger picture Having the Hamiltonian on the multi-particle space at hand we can consider the dynamics described in the multi-particle space.
Abstract From the previous chapters on linear response theory and Green’s functions, it is clear that complete calculations of thermal averages of time-dependent phenomena in quantum field theory are a rather formidable task. Even the basic imaginary time-evolution operator Û (τ ) itself is an infinite series to all orders in the interaction Û(ϊ) . One simply faces the problem of getting lost in the myriads of integrals, and not being able to maintain a good physical intuition of which terms are important. In 1948 Feynman solved this problem as part of his seminal work on quantum electrodynamics by inventing the ingenious diagrams that today bear his name. The Feynman diagrams are both an exact mathematical representation of perturbation theory to infinite order and a powerful pictorial method that elucidate the physical content of the complicated expressions. In this chapter, we introduce the Feynman diagrams for the case of non-interacting particles in an external potential. Our main example of their use will be the analysis of electron-impurity scattering in disordered metals.
On the basis of an exact perturbational expression for the interacting one-particle Green function
G corresponding to bosons / fermions in terms of the bare interaction potential
v and permanents / determinants of the non-interacting one-particle Green function
G0, we deduce four recursive perturbation expansions for the self-energy
Σ. With
W denoting the dynamic screened interaction potential, these perturbation expansions are identical to those of
Σ in terms of (i) self-energy diagrams and
(v,G0), (ii)
G-skeleton self-energy diagrams and
(v,G), (iii)
W-skeleton self-energy diagrams and
(W,G0), and (iv)
G- and
W-skeleton self-energy diagrams and
(W,G). For the calculation of
W, we rely on a similar exact perturbational expression for the interacting two-particle Green function
G2 as for
G. From this expression, we deduce four recursive perturbation expansions for the polarization function
P, necessary for the calculation of
W, that are similar to those for
Σ specified above. The correlation functions considered in this paper may be corresponding to ground states, and thermal ensemble of states. For thermal ensemble of states, we consider both the imaginary-time formalism of Matsubara, and the real-time formalism of thermo-field dynamics (TFD). The latter is advantageous for the direct calculation of dynamic correlation functions. In an appendix, we apply the formalisms presented in this paper to the Hubbard Hamiltonian for spin-
21 fermions on a lattice in arbitrary
d spatial dimensions. In two further appendices, we present methods and short programs for determining the
νth-order diagrams corresponding to the perturbation expansions of
G in terms of
(v,G0), and
Σ in terms of
(v,G0) and
(v,G) on the basis of the cycle decompositions of the elements of the symmetric group
S2ν.
In this chapter we introduce the fundamental concepts behind the Green Function Theory. We start from a description of the second quantization method and then, after introducing the ensemble average of an operator, we define the main object of the theory, the Green function. Further on, after obtaining the equation of motion for the Green function, we introduce the self-energy operator and we discuss the Hartree-Fock approximation, the second-Born approximation and the GW approximation to the self-energy.
A number of powerful methods exist in statistical mechanics to describe the interweaving of the variety of elementary modes of excitation taking place in a quantal many-body system. Among them, one can mention the Static Path approximation (cf., e.g., Feynmann and Hibbs ( 1965 )), the Monte-Carlo Shell Model Method (Koonin et al. ( 1997 )), and the thermal Green-function formalism (cf., e.g., Mahan ( 1981 )). The first two approaches have not yet been systematically used to describe nuclear motion at finite temperature. We shall briefly discuss them in the present chapter. The Matsubara techniques, which have been applied to the study of a large variety of phenomena, are discussed in Ch. 9 .