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Cambridge University Press eBooks

Bosonization II: Selected Applications

R. Shankar

Published Aug 31, 2017• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

“Bosonization” refers to the possibility of describing a theory of relativistic Dirac fermions obeying standard anticommutation rules by a boson field theory. While this may be possible in all dimensions, it has so far proved most useful in d = 1, where the bosonic version of the given fermionic theory is local and simple, and often simpler than the Fermi theory. This chapter should be viewed as a stepping stone toward a more thorough approach, for which references are given at the end. In this chapter I will set up the bosonization machine, explaining its basic logic and the dictionary for transcribing a fermionic theory to a bosonic theory. The next chapter will be devoted to applications. To my knowledge, bosonization, as described here, was first carried out by Lieb and Mattis [1] in their exact solution of the Luttinger model [2]. Later, Luther and Peschel [3] showed how to use it to find asymptotic (low momentum and energy) correlation functions for more generic interacting Fermi systems. It was independently discovered in particle physics by Coleman [4], and further developed by Mandelstam [5]. Much of what I know and use is inspired by the work of Luther and Peschel. Preamble Before getting into any details, I would first like to answer two questions. First, if bosonization applies only to relativistic Dirac fermions, why is it of any interest to condensed matter theory where relativity is not essential? Second, what is the magic by which bosonization helps us tame interacting field theories? As for the first question, there are two ways in which Dirac fermions enter condensed matter physics. The first is in the study of two-dimensional Ising models, where we have already encountered them. Recall that if we use the transfer matrix approach and convert the classical problem on an N × N lattice to a quantum problem in one dimension we end up with a 2 N -dimensional Hilbert space, with a Pauli matrix at each of N sites. The two dimensions at each site represent the twofold choice of values open to the Ising spins. Consider now a spinless fermion degree of freedom at each site. Here too we have two choices: the fermion state is occupied or empty.

DOI
10.1017/9781139044349.018

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“Bosonization” refers to the possibility of describing a theory of relativistic Dirac fermions obeying standard anticommutation rules by a boson field theory. While this may be possible in all dimensions, it has so far proved most useful in d = 1, where the bosonic version of the given fermionic theory is local and simple, and often simpler than the Fermi theory. This chapter should be viewed as a stepping stone toward a more thorough approach, for which references are given at the end. In this chapter I will set up the bosonization machine, explaining its basic logic and the dictionary for transcribing a fermionic theory to a bosonic theory. The next chapter will be devoted to applications. To my knowledge, bosonization, as described here, was first carried out by Lieb and Mattis [1] in their exact solution of the Luttinger model [2]. Later, Luther and Peschel [3] showed how to use it to find asymptotic (low momentum and energy) correlation functions for more generic interacting Fermi systems. It was independently discovered in particle physics by Coleman [4], and further developed by Mandelstam [5]. Much of what I know and use is inspired by the work of Luther and Peschel. Preamble Before getting into any details, I would first like to answer two questions. First, if bosonization applies only to relativistic Dirac fermions, why is it of any interest to condensed matter theory where relativity is not essential? Second, what is the magic by which bosonization helps us tame interacting field theories? As for the first question, there are two ways in which Dirac fermions enter condensed matter physics. The first is in the study of two-dimensional Ising models, where we have already encountered them. Recall that if we use the transfer matrix approach and convert the classical problem on an N × N lattice to a quantum problem in one dimension we end up with a 2 N -dimensional Hilbert space, with a Pauli matrix at each of N sites. The two dimensions at each site represent the twofold choice of values open to the Ising spins. Consider now a spinless fermion degree of freedom at each site. Here too we have two choices: the fermion state is occupied or empty.
This chapter discusses the technique of bosonization for studying systems of interacting fermions in one dimension. It reviews the low-energy properties of Fermi and Luttinger liquids and presents some of the relations between bosonic and fermionic operators in one dimension. The chapter explores these relations to calculate the correlation functions and the renormalization group properties of various operators for a system of spinless fermions. It explains the methods of bosonization to study the Heisenberg antiferromagnetic spin 1/2 chain, the Hubbard model in one dimension and transport in clean quantum wires and in the presence of isolated impurities. The basic idea of bosonization is that there are certain objects which can be calculated either in a fermionic theory or in a bosonic theory, and the two calculations give the same answer. The chapter also discusses another application of bosonization, which is to study transport, in particular the DC conductivity in one-dimensional wires of interacting fermions.
This volume provides a detailed account of bosonization. The first part of the book examines the technical aspects of bosonization including one-dimensional fermions, the Gaussian model, the structure of Hilbert space in conformal theories, Bose-Einstein condensation in two dimensions, non-Abelian bosonization, and the Ising and WZNW models. The second part presents applications of the bosonization technique to realistic models including the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid, spin liquids in one dimension and the spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain with alternative exchange. The third part addresses the problems of quantum impurities. Chapters cover potential scattering, the X-ray edge problem, impurities in Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids and the multi-channel Kondo problem.
Chapter 31 discussed the generic O(N) non-linear σ-model. We have noticed that the abelian case N = 2 is special because the RG β-function vanishes in two dimensions. The corresponding O(2) invariant spin model is specially interesting: it provides an example of the celebrated Kosterlitz–Thouless phase transition and will be examined in Chapter 33. However, a thorough discussion of this model requires a new technique: we have to establish relations, special to two dimensions, between fermion and boson local field theories, by a method called bosonization. This chapter illustrates the derivation involves several steps with the help of various other two-dimensional models which are physically interesting in their own right. It first studies the free massless boson and fermion fields. It evaluates the determinant of the covariant fermion derivative in the presence of an external gauge field. The result is at the basis of the bosonization technique. The chapter then discusses the sine–Gordon (SG) model. It solves the Schwinger model, QED with massless fermions. Finally, it demonstrates the equivalence between the SG model and two fermion models with current-current interaction: the Thirring model and another model with two species of fermions.
For pure fermionic systems, and in the absence of symmetry breaking (e.g. magnetism, superconductivity, …), two types of metallic phases are well established: (i) the “normal” Fermi liquid phase in d = 3 presented in Chapters 12 and 19 via the response and the Green functions techniques; and (ii) the “anomalous” Luttinger liquid phase in d = 1 originally formulated with the bosonization technique by which the fermionic operators are represented in terms of “bosonic” density operators (Luther and Peschel (1974); Haldane (1981)) with the exact solution (Mattis and Lieb (1965)) of the Tomonaga–Luttinger model (Tomonaga (1950); Luttinger (1963)) discussed inmany reviews and books (see for instance the book by Giamarchi (2004)). Here, to stress similarities and differences between the Fermi liquid and the Luttinger liquid, we will follow the alternative route of response and Green functions techniques (Dzyaloshinskii and Larkin (1973), Di Castro and Metzner (1991), Metzner et al. (1998)) and add a few comments on the renormalization group approach (Metzner and Di Castro (1993)). As we have seen in Chapters 12 and 19, the Fermi liquid is described asymptotically by the free low-lying single-particle excitations, i.e., the quasiparticles with a zero-kelvin discontinuous occupation number in momentum space n k (see Eq. (18.54)) at a well defined Fermi surface (k = k F ): where here k F> and k F< indicate the limit k → k F from above and below. This discontinuity still marks the Fermi surface in the interacting system. The finite reduction of the single-particle spectral weight z kF with respect to the Fermi gas (z kF = 1) is given by the finite (i.e. non-critical) “wavefunction renormalization” (see Eq. (18.94)). The presence of the discontinuity at the Fermi surface, together with the Pauli principle, compel the inverse quasiparticle lifetime to be τ −1 ≈ max( T 2 , ϵ 2 ), where _ is the deviation of the energy of the quasiparticle from the Fermi energy. The energy uncertainty ħτ −1 due to the finite lifetime of a quasiparticle near the Fermi surface is small compared to its energy ϵ , and the quasiparticle concept is well defined. All the momentum transferring scattering processes become asymptotically ineffective, as derived phenomenologically in Chapter 12 and confirmed microscopically in Chapter 19.
In a first part we give a brief presentation of general Fock space setting to describe quantum field theory. Bosons are quantum particles with integer spin and have symmetric wave functions; Fermions are quantum particles with half-integer spin and are represented by anti-symmetric wave functions. The functional setting is given by a symmetric or anti-symmetric tensor product of Hilbert spaces. We describe these spaces and transformations between these spaces. We shall follow the references [23, 42]. Coherent states are defined by translating the vacuum states with the Weyl operators. This is easily done here for bosons. We shall see in the next chapter how to deal with fermions. In a second part we give an interesting application of bosonic coherent states to the study of the classical limit as ℏ↘0\hbar \searrow 0ℏ↘0 of non-relativistic boson systems with two body interaction in the neighborhood of a solution of the classical system (here the Hartree equation). The classical limit corresponds here to the mean-field limit as the number of particles goes to infinity. As we have done for finite systems, we use here Hepp’s method, which is a linearization procedure of the quantum Hamiltonian around the classical field. The fluctuations around this solution are controlled by a purely quadratic Hamiltonian. In a series of several important papers [114–116] Ginibre and Velo have proven an asymptotic expansion and remainder estimates for these quantum fluctuations. Finally, following the paper [225] one can show that, in the limit ℏ→0\hbar \rightarrow 0ℏ→0, the marginal distribution of the time-evolved coherent states tends in trace-norm to the projector onto the solution of the classical fields equation (Hartree equation) with a uniform remainder estimates in time.
Providing a broad review of many techniques and their application to condensed matter systems, this book begins with a review of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, before moving onto real and imaginary time path integrals and the link between Euclidean quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. A detailed study of the Ising, gauge-Ising and XY models is included. The renormalization group is developed and applied to critical phenomena, Fermi liquid theory and the renormalization of field theories. Next, the book explores bosonization and its applications to one-dimensional fermionic systems and the correlation functions of homogeneous and random-bond Ising models. It concludes with Bohm–Pines and Chern–Simons theories applied to the quantum Hall effect. Introducing the reader to a variety of techniques, it opens up vast areas of condensed matter theory for both graduate students and researchers in theoretical, statistical and condensed matter physics.