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Physical Review

Reformulation of the Theory of Pairing Correlations

Michel Baranger

Published May 1, 1963• 77 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A variational approach to the ground state of a many-fermion system is developed with the trial function of condensed pairs proposed by Blatt. The calculation of matrix elements is done by a diagrammatic method which is much simpler than Blatt's. The method is susceptible of generalization to higher correlations. It is also shown that the theory is identical with Hartree-Bogolyubov theory. The Hartree-Bogolyubov equations are derived from the variational point of view.

DOI
10.1103/physrev.130.1244

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A variational approach to the ground state of a many-fermion system is developed with the trial function of condensed pairs proposed by Blatt. The calculation of matrix elements is done by a diagrammatic method which is much simpler than Blatt's. The method is susceptible of generalization to higher correlations. It is also shown that the theory is identical with Hartree-Bogolyubov theory. The Hartree-Bogolyubov equations are derived from the variational point of view.
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.
The many-boson system with repulsive interactions is treated by a variational method based on a variational trial state of an exponential pair-excitation type obtained by a generalization of that of Bogoliubov; the treatment is closely related to an intermediate-coupling approximation with respect to pairs. The nonlinear integral equation which determines the variational ground state is derived, and various properties of this ground state and the associated excited states are examined. The resultant low-lying spectrum lies below that of Bogoliubov by an amount proportional to the total number of particles. The variational principle is shown to produce rigorous energy eigenvalue differences for the pair part of the Hamiltonian. The variational states, however, still exhibit unphysical features characteristic of pair-excitation states: The pair correlation function does not go to zero at zero particle separation and the phonon spectrum exhibits a gap above the ground state. It is suggested that these features can be removed by using states which take into account excitation of momentum-conserving groups of more than two particles.
By means of a suitably chosen variational principle, Euler equations are derived which generalize the Hartree-Fock equations in such a way as to include two-particle correlations. For a system of NNN fermions these equations involve NNN single-particle functions and $\frac{1}{2}N(N\ensuremath{-}1)$ pair correlation functions. The Euler equations are optimal in the sense that a more accurate estimation of the total energy would require the introduction of three-particle correlation functions and the retention of terms nonlinear in the two-particle functions. Although intended primarily for use in the calculation of atomic and molecular electronic structure, the Euler equations are here used to determine the Coulomb correlation energy in the case of the high-density electron gas. The result obtained is shown to have the same leading logarithmic divergence with density as that found previously by Gell-Mann and Brueckner.
We present a static recursive method that can straightforwardly be applied to variational treatments of canonical many-body systems whose ground states generally exhibit pairing or higher clustering correlations. We illustrate the utility of the method by applying it to an electron system with pairing interactions where we obtain, as expected, a smooth transition between a Bose condensate of tightly bound electron pairs and a superconducting ground state. The method also reproduces the mean-field results for the electron-hole liquid problem as well as the antiferromagnetic insulator ground state of the Hubbard model but in a simpler way. We give a nontrivial application to a model of dense molecular hydrogen consisting of condensed generalized molecules. We show that the effective interaction between identical particles is of such a form that the state undergoes a dielectric catastrophe at a certain finite density. The competition between this abrupt transition and a smooth transition of atomic pairs in the spinless and translationally invariant version of the problem is also discussed.