Quantum Statistical Pair Distribution Function. General Theory and its Application to the Electron Gas.

D. D. H. Yee

Shigeji Fujita, Ryogo Hirota

An alternative approach to the quantum statistics of interacting particles is proposed. It consists of calculating the equilibrium thermodynamical quantities of the many-body system via the pair distribution function with the assumption that the particles interact with each other only through pair central forces. The proposed approach has some advantage over the usual treatment via the partition function in that the pair distribution function is easier to deal with than the partition function in certain circumstances particularly when the collective motion description of the system is desirable. This is because only the pair distribution function can be expressed directly in terms of the collective interaction which is closely connected with collective elementary excitation, such as a plasmon in the electron gas and a phonon in the hard-sphere Boson gas. The equation of state as well as the internal energy are obtained in the form of integrals of the pair distribution function. The close analogy between the pair distribution function and the two-body propagator, which appears in the quantum field theory, makes it possible to analyze the former by the use of Feynman diagrams identical with those usually introduced for the latter. The collective interaction, which is defined by the sum of the direct and the indirect interactions, is introduced as a particular partial sum of the perturbation series of the pair distribution function. This is used in rewriting the pair distribution function in terms of the collective interaction.It is shown that, while the simple chain approximation to the collective interaction in the electron gas is responsible for the transfer of a plasmon, the same approximation to the collective pseudo-interaction in the hard-sphere Boson system has a relation similar to that of transfer of a phonon, both cases occuring at low temperatures. The explicit calculation of the pair distribution functions for these systems at the absolute zero temperature is carried out up to the first order in the collective interaction (simple chain approximation.) These results are used to calculate the ground-state energies. For the electron gas the energy thus obtained confirms Gell-Mann-Bruckner's calculation of the correlation energy. For the hard-sphere Bosons the calculated energy reproduces the result of Lee, Huang, and Yang. The extension of the calculation to the finite temperature case is also indicated. In particular the classical Debye-Huckel equation of state for the electron gas is briefly discussed.

A. Isihara

Quantum field theoretical methods are discussed to evaluate the spatial distribution in many-body systems in equilibrium. The pair and triplet distribution functions are explicitly evaluated for noninteracting cases. A general method to evaluate the pair distribution function in the chain and ring diagram approximations for interacting systems is presented in detail. The result is expressed in terms of the eigenvalues of the propagators characteristic of the diagrams. This result generalized the Gell-Mann and Brueckner formula for the equation of state, the derivation of which is also given. The eigenvalues are evaluated for Boltzmann, Bose and Fermi statistics. Application of the result to a hard-sphere Bose gas is made, and the effect of condensation is studied. It is found that the phonon velocity depends on the number of particles in the lowest state. The distribution functions of a degenerate Fermi system are also calculated.

Qiuping-A. Wang, Alain Le Méhauté

Luca M. Ghiringhelli, Ian P. Hamilton, Luigi Delle Site

We consider a nearly (or quasi) uniform gas of interacting electrons for which spin statistics play a crucial role. A previously developed procedure, based on the extension of the Levy-Lieb constrained search principle and Monte Carlo sampling of electron configurations in space, allows us to approximate the form of the kinetic-energy functional. For a spinless electron gas, this procedure led to a correlation term, which had the form of the Shannon entropy, but the resulting kinetic-energy functional does not satisfy the Lieb-Thirring inequality, which is rigorous and one of the most general relations regarding the kinetic energy. In this paper, we show that when the fermionic character of the electrons is included via a statistical spin approach, our procedure leads to correlation terms, which also have the form of the Shannon entropy and the resulting kinetic-energy functional does satisfy the Lieb-Thirring inequality. In this way we further strengthen the connection between Shannon entropy and electron correlation and, more generally, between information theory and quantum mechanics.

G. Kaniadakis, P. Quarati