Collective motion and the application of many-body techniques

K. T. Hecht

Takashi Nakatsukasa, Niels R. Walet

A model Hamiltonian describing a two-level system with a crossing plus a pairing force is investigated using technique of large-amplitude collective motion. The collective path, which is determined by the decoupling conditions, is found to be almost identical to the one in the Born-Oppenheimer approximation for the case of a strong pairing force. For the weak pairing case, the obtained path describes a diabatic dynamics of the system. PACS number(s): 21.60.-n, 36.40.Sx Nuclei and metallic clusters are finite fermionic many-body systems which support many kinds of collective motion. While properties of high-frequency vibrations (giant resonances) may be well reproduced by the random-phase approximation (RPA), some low-frequency vibrations exhibit an anharmonic nature that the RPA cannot describe. Shape coexistence and fission phenomena in nuclei and clusters also have such a large amplitude nature. In order to investigate these kinds of large amplitude collective motion, one would like to reduce the number of degrees of freedom to a few judiciously chosen collective coordinates. In order to determine the collective coordinates self-consistently, we use the theory of adiabatic

Harry J. Lipkin

Takashi Nakatsukasa, Niels R. Walet, G. Do Dang

Methods of large amplitude collective motion in the adiabatic limit are examined with a special emphasis on conservation laws. We show that the restriction to point transformations, which is a usual assumption of the adiabatic time-dependent mean-field theory, needs to be lifted. In order to facilitate the application of large-amplitude collective motion techniques, we examine the possibility of representing the random-phase-approximation normal-mode coordinates by linear combinations of a limited number of one-body operators. We study the pairing-plus-quadrupole model of Baranger and Kumar as an example, and find that such representations exist in terms of operators that are state dependent in a characteristic manner.

Shainen M. Davidson

Understanding the collective behaviour of many-body quantum systems is an important subject in many areas of physics. With advances in ultra-cold gas experiments, the dynamics of strongly-interacting systems can now be studied in the lab. However, there is a paucity of theoretical techniques available to simulate such systems. One technique is phase-space methods, often known as the Truncated Wigner Approximation; however, its applicability in its naive form is limited. In this work, we expound on techniques to expand the regimes in which it can be effective. This involves creating a novel phase-space that is tailored to the problem at hand, and associated classical equations of motion. We show techniques for lattice systems with local finite Hilbert spaces, for fermionic systems, and for many-body localized systems. In all cases, we benchmark the accuracy of the approximation against exact results.

Harry J. Lipkin