A recently developed method to diagonalize or block-diagonalize Hamiltonians is reviewed. As an example it is applied to the elimination of the electron-phonon interaction. A discussion of the advantage of this method is given.
We derive and solve the Hamiltonian flow equations for a Dirac particle in an external static potential. The method shows a general procedure for the set up of continuous unitary transformations to reduce the Hamiltonian to a quasidiagonal form. Supported by DFG Grant 436 RUS 113/205/1 on Russian German CooperationThe well known Foldy-Wouthuysen (FW) transformation [1] is a unitary transformation that separates big and small components in the Dirac equation for a particle interacting with an external electromagnetic field. If the external field is stationary then the FW transformation reduces to a unitary transformation of the Hamiltonian H of the Dirac particle H ′ = e iS (⃗α(⃗p − e ⃗ A(⃗x)) + βm + eA0(⃗x))e −iS (1) where S can be expanded in a sequence of hermitean operators in powers of 1/m. Recently a novel method to diagonalize Hamiltonians via continuous unitary transformations has been proposed [2], where the Hamiltonian H and the S are considered to be functions of a continuous variable, the flow parameter l. This new method has been applied to several topics like the n − orbital model [2], superconductivity and the electron phonon interaction [3, 4]. We want to apply it here to the Dirac particle in an external field in order to explore its possibilities with a well known problem. Thereby we can gain experience in solving problems like the elimination of negative energy states in near light cone QCD [5], where the solution has yet to be discovered. For infinitesimal steps exp(η(l)dl) a continuous unitary transformation of the Hamiltonian H leads to the so-called Hamiltonian flow equation dH(l) dl = [η(l), H(l)] (2) with initial condition H(0) = H. The transformation matrix η(l) is antihermitian and related to S as follows η(l) = ( d dl eiS(l))e −iS(l). The parameter l has dimension of energy −2 and characterizes the amount of diagonalization which has been achieved. In the energy representation the matrix elements of the Hamiltonian H will be grouped in a band of width
This thesis presents an overview of the flow equations recently introduced by Wegner. The little known mathematical framework of the flow in the manifold of unitarily equivalent matrices, as discovered in the mathematical literature before Wegner's paper, is established in the initial chapter and used as a background for the entire presentation. The application of flow equations to the Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation and to the elimination of the electron-phonon coupling in a solid is reviewed. Recent flow equations approaches to the Lipkin model are examined thoroughly, paying special attention to their utility near the phase change boundary. We present more robust schemes by requiring that expectation values be flow dependent; either through a variational or self-consistent calculation. The similarity renormalization group equations recently developed by Glazek and Wilson are also reviewed. Their relationship to Wegner's flow equations is investigated through the aid of an instructive model.