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Annalen der Physik

Flow‐equations for Hamiltonians

Franz Wegner

Published Jan 1, 1994• 695 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Flow‐equations are introduced in order to bring Hamiltonians closer to diagonalization. It is characteristic for these equations that matrix‐elements between degenerate or almost degenerate states do not decay or decay very slowly. In order to understand different types of physical systems in this framework it is probably necessary to classify various types of these degeneracies and to investigate the corresponding physical behavior. In general these equations generate many‐particle interactions. However, for an n‐orbital model the equations for the two‐particle interaction are closed in the limit of large n. Solutions of these equations for a one‐dimensional model are considered. There appear convergency problems, which are removed, if instead of diagonalization only a block‐diagonalization into blocks with the same number of quasiparticles is performed.

DOI
10.1002/andp.19945060203

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Abstract Flow‐equations are introduced in order to bring Hamiltonians closer to diagonalization. It is characteristic for these equations that matrix‐elements between degenerate or almost degenerate states do not decay or decay very slowly. In order to understand different types of physical systems in this framework it is probably necessary to classify various types of these degeneracies and to investigate the corresponding physical behavior. In general these equations generate many‐particle interactions. However, for an n‐orbital model the equations for the two‐particle interaction are closed in the limit of large n. Solutions of these equations for a one‐dimensional model are considered. There appear convergency problems, which are removed, if instead of diagonalization only a block‐diagonalization into blocks with the same number of quasiparticles is performed.
We derive Hamiltonian flow equations giving the evolution of the Lipkin Hamiltonian to a diagonal form using continuous unitary transformations. To close the system of flow equations, we present two different schemes. First we linearize an operator with three pairs of creation and destruction operators by reducing it to the zzz component of the quasi spin. We obtain the well known RPA-result in the limit of large particle number. In the second scheme we introduce a new operator which improves the resulting spectrum considerably especially for few particles.
This paper presents a renormalization approach to many-particle systems. By starting from a bare Hamiltonian H=H0+H1\mathcal{H}={\mathcal{H}}_{0}+{\mathcal{H}}_{1}H=H0​+H1​ with an unperturbed part H0{\mathcal{H}}_{0}H0​ and a perturbation H1,{\mathcal{H}}_{1},H1​, we define an effective Hamiltonian which has a band-diagonal shape with respect to the eigenbasis of H0.{\mathcal{H}}_{0}.H0​. This means that all transition matrix elements are suppressed which have energy differences larger than a given cutoff $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ that is smaller than the cutoff $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ of the original Hamiltonian. This property resembles a recent flow equation approach on the basis of continuous unitary transformations. For demonstration of the method we discuss an exact solvable model, as well as the Anderson-lattice model where the well-known quasiparticle behavior of heavy fermions is derived.
This thesis is about the derivation of effective mean field equations and their next-order corrections starting from nonrelativistic many-body quantum theory. Mean field equations provide an approximate ansatz for the description of interacting many-particle systems. In this ansatz the interaction between the particles is replaced by a self-consistent external potential leading to an effective one-body description of the many-particle system. Next-order corrections provide an approximation which goes one step further and tries to capture also subleading effects that are not resolved by the mean field ansatz. We present mathematical proofs for the validity of such effective theories for different models that are motivated, e.g., from the theory of ultracold atoms (the bosonic Hartree equation and the corresponding Bogoliubov theory) and from plasma physics (the motion of a tracer particle through a degenerate and dense electron gas). Starting from a many-body Schrödinger equation, our goal is to show that the solutions converge in a particular limit to the solutions to an effective mean field equation and its next-order corrections. After a short introduction and a summary in Chapter one, we present the main part of this work in three self-contained chapters. In Chapter two we analyze the dynamics of a large number N of nonrelativistic bosons in the weak coupling limit, i.e., for a coupling constant g_N=1/N. It is well known that in the limit of infinite particle number, the Hartree equation emerges as an effective one-particle theory of the Bose gas. This is closely related to the remarkable physical phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation at low temperature, namely that the majority of particles in a Bose gas occupies the same copy of a single one-particle quantum state. Our emphasis lies in the description of the few particles that fluctuate around the Bose-Einstein condensate. We show convergence of the fully interacting dynamics to an auxiliary time evolution in the norm of the N-particle space. This result allows us to prove several other assertions. Among other things, it is used to derive the Hartree equation with optimal speed of convergence 1/N for initial states that are close to ground states of interacting systems and also to prove convergence of the N-particle solution towards a time evolution obtained from the Bogoliubov Hamiltonian on Fock space. Chapter three is about the low energy properties of the weakly interacting homogeneous Bose gas. Here, we derive a novel estimate for low energy eigenfunctions stating that the probability for finding lll particles out of their total number N not in the condensate is exponentially small in the number lll. Using this bound, we then prove that the ground state wave function of the microscopic model satisfies certain quasifree type properties. The exponential decay is moreover used to provide an alternative proof for the validity of Bogoliubov's approximation for the low-lying energy eigenvalues. Bogoliubov theory states that the excitation energies of the Bose gas are given by excitations of free quasiparticles obeying an effective energy-momentum dispersion relation which is linear for small momentum. The linearity of the effective dispersion relation is an essential ingredient for the explanation of the superfluid character of the Bose gas. In Chapter four we study the time evolution of a single particle coupled through a pair potential to a dense and homogeneous ideal Fermi gas in two spatial dimensions. This type of model is well known in plasma physics where it is used to describe the energy loss of ions moving through a dense and degenerate electron gas. We analyze the model for a coupling parameter g=1 and prove closeness of the time evolution to an effective dynamics for large densities of the gas and for long time scales of the order of some power of the density. The effective dynamics is generated by the free Hamiltonian with a large but constant energy shift. To leading order, this energy shift is given by the spatially homogeneous mean field potential produced by the gas particles, whereas at next-to-leading order, one has to consider an additional correction to the mean field energy which is due to so-called recollision processes.
We discuss the partitioning of a quantum system through subsystem separation by unitary block-diagonalization (SSUB) applied to a Fock operator. For a one-particle Hilbert space, this separation can be formulated in a very general way. Therefore, it can be applied to very different partitionings ranging from those driven by features in the molecular structure (such as a solute surrounded by solvent molecules or an active site in an enzyme) to those that aim at an orbital separation (such as core-valence separation). Our framework embraces recent developments of Manby and Miller as well as the older ones of Huzinaga and Cantu. Projector-based embedding is simplified and accelerated by SSUB. Moreover, it directly relates to decoupling approaches for relativistic four-component many-electron theory. For a Fock operator based on the Dirac one-electron Hamiltonian, one would like to separate the so-called positronic (negative-energy) states from the electronic bound and continuum states. The exact two-component (X2C) approach developed for this purpose becomes a special case of the general SSUB framework and may therefore be viewed as a system-environment decoupling approach. Moreover, for SSUB, there exists no restriction with respect to the number of subsystems that are generated-in the limit, decoupling of all single-particle states is recovered, which represents exact diagonalization of the problem. The fact that a Fock operator depends on its eigenvectors poses challenges to all system-environment decoupling approaches and is discussed in terms of the SSUB framework. Apart from improved conceptual understanding, these relations bring about technical advances as developments in different fields can immediately cross-fertilize one another. As an important example, we discuss the atomic decomposition of the unitary block-diagonalization matrix in X2C-type approaches that can inspire approaches for the efficient partitioning of large total systems based on SSUB.