Few-Body Methods: Principles & Applications

D. Bollé

A. L. Kuzemsky

The approach to the theory of many-particle interacting systems from a unified standpoint, based on the variational principle for free energy is reviewed. A systematic discussion is given of the approximate free energies of complex statistical systems. The analysis is centered around the variational principle of Bogoliubov for free energy in the context of its applications to various problems of statistical mechanics. The review presents a terse discussion of selected works carried out over the past few decades on the theory of many-particle interacting systems in terms of the variational inequalities. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss some of the general principles which form the mathematical background to this approach and to establish a connection of the variational technique with other methods, such as the method of the mean (or self-consistent) field in the many-body problem. The method is illustrated by applying it to various systems of many-particle interacting systems, such as Ising, Heisenberg and Hubbard models, superconducting (SC) and superfluid systems, etc. This work proposes a new, general and pedagogical presentation, intended both for those who are interested in basic aspects and for those who are interested in concrete applications.

Ferreira, Lidia S, A. C. Fonseca, Ludwig Streit

Ricardo Andreas Sauerwein, Sabre Kais

We present the path-integral approach to treat quantum phase transitions and critical phenomena for few-body quantum systems. Allowing the space and time variables to have discrete values, we turn the quantum problem into an effective classical lattice problem. Imposing the constraint that any change in space time must preserve the scaling invariance of Brownian paths, we show that the mapped classical lattice system has a known scaling behavior when the particle is free, which breaks down when the strength of the interaction potential reaches a certain value. In principle, any quantity with known scaling behavior may be used to determine the transition point. We illustrate the method by numerically evaluating the correlation length and the radial mean distance for a system composed of a single particle in the presence of an attractive Pöschl-Teller potential in one and three dimensions. The method is general and has potential applicability for large systems.

John Cardy

K. T. Hecht