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Solving Mean Field Ambiguity by Flow Equations

Joerg Jaeckel, CHRISTOF WETTERICH

Published Jul 5, 2002• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We compare different methods used for non-perturbative calculations in strongly interacting fermionic systems. Mean field theory shows a basic ambiguity related to the possibility to perform Fierz transformations. The results depend strongly on an unphysical parameter which reflects the choice of the mean field. Renormalization group equations in a partially bosonized setting can overcome this problem if the truncation is chosen appropriately. We argue that the renormalization group approach goes beyond the lowest order Schwinger-Dyson equation and constitutes a very promising basis for the explicit treatment of condensates and spontaneous symmetry breaking.

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We compare different methods used for non-perturbative calculations in strongly interacting fermionic systems. Mean field theory shows a basic ambiguity related to the possibility to perform Fierz transformations. The results depend strongly on an unphysical parameter which reflects the choice of the mean field. Renormalization group equations in a partially bosonized setting can overcome this problem if the truncation is chosen appropriately. We argue that the renormalization group approach goes beyond the lowest order Schwinger-Dyson equation and constitutes a very promising basis for the explicit treatment of condensates and spontaneous symmetry breaking.
We compare different methods used for nonperturbative calculations in strongly interacting fermionic systems. Mean field theory often shows a basic ambiguity related to the possibility to perform Fierz transformations. The results may then depend strongly on an unphysical parameter which reflects the choice of the mean field, thus limiting the reliability. This ambiguity is absent for Schwinger-Dyson equations or fermionic renormalization group equations. Also renormalization group equations in a partially bosonized setting can overcome the Fierz ambiguity if the truncation is chosen appropriately. This is reassuring since the partially bosonized renormalization group approach constitutes a very promising basis for the explicit treatment of condensates and spontaneous symmetry breaking even for situations where the bosonic correlation length is large.
A useful tool in non perturbative studies of fermionic theories is partial bosonization. However, partial bosonization is often connected to an ambiguity due to Fierz rearrangement in the original theory. We discuss two different approximations for the calculation of the effective action ΓΓΓ with respect to a spurious dependence on the choice of Fierz transformation: Mean field theory and the truncated flow of an exact renormalization group equation for the effective average action.
We compare different versions of a bosonic description for systems of interacting fermions, with particular emphasis on the free-energy functional. The bosonic effective action makes the issue of symmetries particularly transparent. A systematic expansion for the bosonic effective action starts with a solution to the lowest-order Schwinger-Dyson or gap equation. We propose a two-particle irreducible formulation of an exact functional renormalization group equation for computations beyond leading order. On this basis we suggest a renormalized gap equation. This approach is compared with functional renormalization in a partially bosonized setting.
The fermionic functional renormalization group in the one-particle irreducible formulation is truncated following an idea by Katanin. In this truncation, mean-field models are solved exactly in the symmetric phase and also for broken symmetry if the flow is seeded with symmetry-broken initial conditions. The method is applied using the momentum-shell cutoff to a charge-density-wave mean-field model at zero and finite temperature in order to understand the flows it produces. A small external field is applied to provide the symmetry-broken starting point. Increasing it suppresses the maximum of the effective interaction in the flow while increasing the final result for the order parameter. The effect of temperature on the flow as well as on the impact of the external field is studied. By employing an interaction-flow cutoff instead of the momentum-shell cutoff, the introduction of an off-diagonal counterterm is made effective. Results at zero external field thus become attainable via the functional renormalization group despite the symmetry-broken starting point. The maximum of the effective interaction flow can be shifted to the end of the flow where the order parameter flow is saturated. Spontaneous first-order transitions and hysteresis effects, outside the scope of the momentum-shell procedure, can be studied. A resummation of perturbation theory is used to exactly solve a reduced model combining Cooper and forward scattering. Anomalous effective interactions, including ones with an odd number of incoming legs, and the Goldstone boson are discussed. The latter anomalous effective interactions are the focus of the following study of the attractive Hubbard model in two dimensions at zero temperature, where the resummation framework is used as an approximation. The anomalous effective interactions with an odd number of incoming legs are of small importance for qualitative aspects, but have an impact quantitatively. The latter is found to vary in strength. Both renormalization-group procedures are used to study the superconducting order in the attractive Hubbard model. Although neither one is exact in the Hubbard case, stable flows yielding approximations comparable to ones found in the recent literature are discovered in both cases. The momentum-shell flows of the order parameter as well as of the normal and anomalous effective interactions are analyzed. Anomalous effective interactions and collective modes are studied in particular. The interaction-flow approach is used to obtain results for the order parameter which are compared with results from previous studies in detail.
We present a consistent fusion of functional renormalization group and mean-field theory which explicitly introduces a bosonic field via a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation at the critical scale, at which the order sets in. We show that a minimal truncation of the flow equations, that neglects order-parameter fluctuations, is integrable and fulfills fundamental constraints as the Goldstone theorem and the Ward identity connected with the broken global symmetry. To introduce the bosonic field, we present a technique to factorize the most singular part of the vertex, even when the full dependence on all its arguments is retained. We test our method on the two-dimensional attractive Hubbard model at half-filling and calculate the superfluid gap as well as the Yukawa couplings and residual two-fermion interactions in the ordered phase as functions of fermionic Matsubara frequencies. Furthermore, we analyze the gap and the condensate fraction for weak and moderate couplings and compare our results with previous functional renormalization group studies, and with quantum Monte Carlo data. Our formalism constitutes a convenient starting point for the inclusion of order-parameter fluctuations by keeping a full, nonsimplified, dependence on fermionic momenta and/or frequencies.
We apply the flow equation method for studying the fermion systems where pairing interactions can either trigger the BCS instability with the symmetry breaking manifested by the off-diagonal order parameter or lead to the gaped single particle spectrum without any symmetry breaking. We construct the continuous Bogoliubov transformation in a scheme resembling the renormalization group procedure. We further extend this continuous transformation to a case where fermion pairs interact with the boson field. Due to temporal quantum fluctuations the single particle excitation spectrum develops a gap which is centered around the renormalized boson energy. When bosons undergo the Bose Einstein condensation this structure evolves into the BCS spectrum.