The formulation of molecular quantum mechanics with the aid of particle density operators and phase operators

M. Schleicher, Hans Primas

Abstract A mathematically rigorous reformulation of molecular quantum mechanics in terms of the particle density operator and a canonically conjugated phase field is given. Using a momentum cutoff, it is shown that the usual molecular Hamiltonian can be expressed in terms of the particle density operator and a rigorously defined phase operator. It is shown that this Hamiltonian converges strongly to the cutoff‐free Hamiltonian. In spite of the fact that this Hamiltonian is of second order in the phase operators, all hitherto published expressions are not correct. Unfortunately, the correct formulation destroys the intuitive appeal of using the particle density operator as a coordinate for the many‐body problems of quantum chemistry. Unless somebody provides an essential new and clever idea, we propose to resist the fascination of a local quantum field theory of molecular matter in terms of the particle density operator.

Hans Primas, M. Schleicher

Abstract A comprehensive review of the attempts to rephrase molecular quantum mechanics in terms of the particle density operator and the current density or phase density operator is given. All pertinent investigations which have come to our attention suffer from severe mathematical inconsistencies and are not adequate to the few‐body problem of quantum chemistry. The origin of the failure of these attempts is investigated and it is shown that a realization of a local quantum field theory of molecular matter in terms of observables would presuppose the solution of many highly nontrivial mathematical problems.

J. E. Lennard-Jones

Antonio Redondo

A density-matrix formulation of the ab initio methods of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is presented. The variational equations for the standard calculational techniques of molecular quantum mechanics are derived from a single expression for the total energy of an N-particle system. A generalization of the Hohenberg-Kohn theorem is proved, showing that the ground-state energy of a many-body Hamiltonian is a functional of the single-particle density matrix and hence of the first-order reduced-density function (the diagonal of which is the particle density of the standard theorem). The theorem is used to develop a new method to calculate the total energy and single-particle properties of the many-body problem.

Jean Barriol