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Condensed Matter Physics

Non-perturbative construction of the Luttinger-Ward functional

Potthoff

Published Jan 1, 2006• 67 citations
Publisher

Abstract

For a system of correlated electrons, the Luttinger-Ward functional provides a link between static thermodynamic quantities on the one hand and single-particle excitations on the other.The functional is useful in deriving several general properties of the system as well as in formulating the thermodynamically consistent approximations.Its original construction, however, is perturbative as it is based on the weak-coupling skeleton-diagram expansion.Here, it is shown that the Luttinger-Ward functional can be derived within a general functional-integral approach.This alternative and non-perturbative approach stresses the fact that the Luttinger-Ward functional is universal for a large class of models.

DOI
10.5488/cmp.9.3.557

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For a system of correlated electrons, the Luttinger-Ward functional provides a link between static thermodynamic quantities on the one hand and single-particle excitations on the other.The functional is useful in deriving several general properties of the system as well as in formulating the thermodynamically consistent approximations.Its original construction, however, is perturbative as it is based on the weak-coupling skeleton-diagram expansion.Here, it is shown that the Luttinger-Ward functional can be derived within a general functional-integral approach.This alternative and non-perturbative approach stresses the fact that the Luttinger-Ward functional is universal for a large class of models.
For a system of correlated electrons, the Luttinger-Ward functional provides a link between static thermodynamic quantities on the one hand and single-particle excitations on the other. The functional is useful to derive several general properties of the system as well as for the formulation of thermodynamically consistent approximations. Its original construction, however, is perturbative as it is based on the weak-coupling skeleton-diagram expansion. Here, it is shown that the Luttinger-Ward functional can be derived within a general functional-integral approach. This alternative and non-perturbative approach stresses the fact that the Luttinger-Ward functional is universal for a large class of models.
We consider a number of questions regarding the Luttinger-Ward functional and the many-body perturbation series expansion of the proper self-energy Σ(k;z)Σ(\mathbf{k};z)Σ(k;z) specific to uniform ground states (ensemble of states) of interacting fermion systems in terms of skeleton self-energy diagrams and the interacting Green function G(k;z)G(\mathbf{k};z)G(k;z). Utilising a link between the latter series expansion and the classical moment problem (of the Hamburger type), along with the associated continued-fraction expansion, we reaffirm our earlier observation (2007) that for lattice models of fermions interacting through short-range two-body potentials (i.e. for Hubbard-like models) this series is uniformly convergent for almost all wave vectors k\mathbf{k}k and complex energies zzz. The limit of this series is unique. We inquire into the reasons underlying the contrary observation by Kozik et al. (2015) regarding skeleton-diagrammatic perturbation series expansion of ΣΣΣ. In doing so, we make a number of observations of general interest. Chief amongst these, we observe that contrary to general belief thermal correlation functions calculated in the energy domain (i.e. over the set of the relevant Matsubara frequencies) are generally unreliable, in contrast to those calculated in the imaginary-time domain. In an appendix we present a symbolic computational formalism and short programs for singling out topologically distinct proper self-energy diagrams that are algebraically equivalent up to determinate multiplicative constants. This complements the work presented in our previous publication (2019). [Abridged abstract]
On the basis of the Luttinger-Ward functional for interacting many-body systems given in terms of full Green's function GGG and the bare interaction vertex Γ(0)Γ^{(0)}Γ(0), we develop a novel Legendre transformation to express the grand thermodynamic potential ΩΩΩ as a functional of GGG and the renormalized interaction vertex ΓΓΓ so that (i) GGG and ΓΓΓ obey the stationarity conditions δΩ/δG=0δΩ/δG=0δΩ/δG=0 and δΩ/δΓ=0δΩ/δΓ=0δΩ/δΓ=0 and (ii) ΓΓΓ reduces to Γ(0)Γ^{(0)}Γ(0) in the weak-coupling limit. The formalism enables us to perform microscopic studies of thermodynamic, single-particle, and two-particle properties in a unified self-consistent conserving framework.
Parquet diagrams sum self-consistently Feynman graphs for the vertex function with all two-particle multiple scatterings. We show how the complete parquet equations for the Hubbard-like models can be integrated to a generating functional from which all thermodynamic quantities are derived via (functional) derivatives. An explicit Luttinger-Ward functional Φ[G;Λ,K;U]Φ[G;Λ,{\cal K};U]Φ[G;Λ,K;U] is constructed containing only the renormalized one-particle, GGG, irreducible, ΛΛΛ, and reducible, K{\cal K}K, two-particle propagators as independent variational functions. The parquet approximation is proven to be a thermodynamically consistent, ΦΦΦ-derivable theory obeying the necessary conservation laws.
The exact reduced density-matrix functional is derived from the Luttinger-Ward functional of the single-particle Green's function. Thereby, a formal link is provided between diagrammatic many-body approaches using Green's functions on the one hand and theories based on many-body wave functions on the other. This link can be used to explicitly construct approximations for the density-matrix functional that are equivalent to standard diagrammatic resummation techniques and to nonperturbative dynamical mean field theory in particular. Contrary to functionals of the Green's function, the exact density-matrix functional is convex and thus provides a true minimum principle which facilitates the calculation of the grand potential and derived equilibrium properties. The benefits of the proposed Green's-function-based density-matrix functional theory for geometrical structure optimization of strongly correlated materials are discussed.
The Luttinger-Ward functional $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}[\mathbf{G}]$, which expresses the thermodynamic grand potential in terms of the interacting single-particle Green's function G\mathbf{G}G, is found to be ill defined for fermionic models with the Hubbard on-site interaction. In particular, we show that the self-energy $\mathbf{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}[\mathbf{G}]\ensuremath{\propto}\ensuremath{\delta}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}[\mathbf{G}]/\ensuremath{\delta}\mathbf{G}$ is not a single-valued functional of G\mathbf{G}G: in addition to the physical solution for $\mathbf{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}[\mathbf{G}]$, there exists at least one qualitatively distinct unphysical branch. This result is demonstrated for several models: the Hubbard atom, the Anderson impurity model, and the full two-dimensional Hubbard model. Despite this pathology, the skeleton Feynman diagrammatic series for $\mathbf{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}$ in terms of G\mathbf{G}G is found to converge at least for moderately low temperatures. However, at strong interactions, its convergence is to the unphysical branch. This reveals a new scenario of breaking down of diagrammatic expansions. In contrast, the bare series in terms of the noninteracting Green's function G0{\mathbf{G}}_{0}G0​ converges to the correct physical branch of $\mathbf{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}$ in all cases currently accessible by diagrammatic Monte Carlo calculations. In addition to their conceptual importance, these observations have important implications for techniques based on the explicit summation of the diagrammatic series.