This is a follow up on a previous post which discussed the strange fact that in quantum many-body theory certain limits (e.g., zero frequency, and the long wavelength) do not necessarily commute.
Today I learnt that in 1960 Kohn and Luttinger pointed out that the following definitions of the ground state energy are not necessarily the same:
1. The lowest eigenvalue of the Hamiltonian in the thermodynamic limit.
2. The zero temperature limit of the free energy of an infinite system.
This observation was based on an examination of Goldstone's perturbation theory, which is based on 1.
Ward and Luttinger later showed that for spatially isotropic band structures and interactions the two are equivalent.
Metzner and Vollhardt [where I learned all this] claim that for the Hubbard model, to second order in U, the two are equivalent.
Aside: Kohn was very productive in the early 1960's! Another recent post referred to his seminal paper on insulators.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is your experience of using AI for research in condensed matter theory?
I have been dabbling a little with using AI (at a very basic level) to help me with some research problems. For example, in a recent prepr...
-
This week Nobel Prizes will be announced. I have not done predictions since 2020 . This is a fun exercise. It is also good to reflect on w...
-
The Ising model is a paradigm in both statistical mechanics and condensed matter physics. Today for most theorists it is so familiar that so...
-
Some of my colleagues and I have started an interesting discussion about how to teach quantum theory to undergraduates. We have courses in t...
No comments:
Post a Comment