Nonequilibrium Green functions and their application to nonequilibrium systems

Karsten Balzer, M. Bönitz

В. П. Калашников

Adrian Stan and R Leeuwen Nils Erik Dahlen

In this work we discuss the application of nonequilibrium Green functions theory to atomic and molecular systems with the aim to study charge and energy transport in these systems. We apply the Kadanoff-Baym equations to atoms and diatomic molecules initially in the ground state. The results obtained for the correlated initial states are used to analyze variational energy functionals of the Green function which are shown to perform very well. We further show an application of the Kadanoff-Baym equations to a molecule exposed to an external laser field. Finally we discuss the connection between nonequilibrium Green function theory and time-dependent density-functional theory with the aim to develop better density functionals in order to treat larger systems than those attainable with the nonequilibrium Green function method.

Robert van Leeuwen, Nils Erik Dahlen

Niclas Schlünzen, S. Hermanns, Miriam Scharnke +1 more

This article presents an overview on recent progress in the theory of nonequilibrium Green functions (NEGF). We discuss applications of NEGF simulations to describe the femtosecond dynamics of various finite fermionic systems following an excitation out of equilibrium. This includes the expansion dynamics of ultracold atoms in optical lattices following a confinement quench and the excitation of strongly correlated electrons in a solid by the impact of a charged particle. NEGF, presently, are the only ab initio quantum approach that is able to study the dynamics of correlations for long times in two and three dimensions. However, until recently, NEGF simulations have mostly been performed with rather simple selfenergy approximations such as the second-order Born approximation (SOA). While they correctly capture the qualitative trends of the relaxation towards equilibrium, the reliability and accuracy of these NEGF simulations has remained open, for a long time. Here we report on recent tests of NEGF simulations for finite lattice systems against exact-diagonalization and density-matrix-renormalization-group benchmark data. The results confirm the high accuracy and predictive capability of NEGF simulations-provided selfenergies are used that go beyond the SOA and adequately include strong correlation and dynamical-screening effects. With an extended arsenal of selfenergies that can be used effectively, the NEGF approach has the potential of becoming a powerful simulation tool with broad areas of new applications including strongly correlated solids and ultracold atoms. The present review aims at making such applications possible. To this end we present a selfcontained introduction to the theory of NEGF and give an overview on recent numerical applications to compute the ultrafast relaxation dynamics of correlated fermions. In the second part we give a detailed introduction to selfenergies beyond the SOA. Important examples are the third-order approximation, the [Formula: see text] approximation, the T-matrix approximation and the fluctuating-exchange approximation. We give a comprehensive summary of the explicit selfenergy expressions for a variety of systems of practical relevance, starting from the most general expressions (general basis) and the Feynman diagrams, and including also the important cases of diagonal basis sets, the Hubbard model and the differences occuring for bosons and fermions. With these details, and information on the computational effort and scaling with the basis size and propagation duration, readers will be able to choose the proper basis set and straightforwardly implement and apply advanced selfenergy approximations to a broad class of systems.

Karsten Balzer, M. Bönitz