A Self-Consistent Mean-Field Expansion for Two Subsystems: Examples

Sara Cruz-Barrios

Using the Funtional Integrals Formulation is developes a self-consistent mean field expansion to evolution operators of a system composed by two subsystems. This is a general expansion and can be generalized for more of two subsystems, which can be as system composed by fermions and bosons with an interaction between their ($σ$-model , $σ-ω$ model or maser model) as a fermionic system with two or more different interactions between fermions particles, (NJL model ).

V. Janiš, J. Schlipf

A general expansion scheme based on the concept of linked-cluster expansion from the theory of classical spin systems is constructed for models of interacting electrons. It is shown that with a suitable variational formulation of mean-field theories at weak (Hartree-Fock) and strong (Hubbard-III) coupling the expansion represents a universal and comprehensive tool for systematic improvements of static mean-field theories. As an example of the general formalism we investigate in detail an analytically tractable series of ring diagrams that correctly capture dynamical fluctuations at weak coupling. We introduce renormalizations of the diagrammatic expansion at various levels and show how the resultant theories are related to other approximations of similar origin. We demonstrate that only fully self-consistent approximations produce global and thermodynamically consistent extensions of static mean-field theories. A fully self-consistent theory for the ring diagrams is reached by summing the so-called noncrossing diagrams.

Ahmet Elçi

Ajit J. Thakkar

David J. Masiello, William P. Reinhardt

A time-dependent multiconfigurational self-consistent field theory is presented to describe the many-body dynamics of a gas of identical bosonic atoms confined to an external trapping potential at zero temperature from first principles. A set of generalized evolution equations are developed, through the time-dependent variational principle, which account for the complete and self-consistent coupling between the expansion coefficients of each configuration and the underlying one-body wave functions within a restricted two state Fock space basis that includes the full effects of the condensate's mean field as well as atomic correlation. The resulting dynamical equations are a classical Hamiltonian system and, by construction, form a well-defined initial value problem. They are implemented in an efficient numerical algorithm. An example is presented, highlighting the generality of the theory, in which the ballistic expansion of a fragmented condensate ground state is compared to that of a macroscopic quantum superposition state, taken here to be a highly entangled number state, upon releasing the external trapping potential. Strikingly different many-body matter-wave dynamics emerge in each case, accentuating the role of both atomic correlation and mean-field effects in the two condensate states.