Useful stuff

Commutator properties

[A,B+C]=[A,B]+[A,C]
[A+B,C]=[A,C]+[B,C]
[A,BC]=B[A,C]+[A,B]C
[AB,C]=A[B,C]+[A,C]B

Densities of Slater determinants

Theorem

A wavefunction Ψ(1N) is a Slater determinant iff it's density matrix ρΨ is a projector in the single-particle Hilbert space ρΨ2=ρΨ.

Theorem (Baranger and Veneroni)

Any density matrix ρ that belongs to a Slater determinant (ρ=ρ2) can be decomposed in the following way:

ρ=eiχρ0eiχ

Where χ and ρ0 are Hermitian matrices which are even under time reversal.

The above decomposition is unique if:

  1. χ has only ph and hp matrix elements in the basis in which ρ0 is diagonal:

    ρ0χρ0=σ0χσ0=0

    (σ0=1ρ0 projects onto particle states.)

  2. The eigenvalues of χ obey:

    π4χμ<π4

    We are not proving these theorems 🤫.

Some rules for calculating with Slater determinant densities

An arbitrary matrix A has the following "parts" in a basis in which ρ is diagonal:

App=σAσ;Ahh=ρAρ;Aph=σAρ;Ahp=ρAσ.

The three following statements are equivalent:

A=Aρ+ρAA=σA+AσApp=Ahh=0.

If two matrices A, B obey B=[A,ρ], then:

Aph=Bph;Ahp=Bhp;Bpp=Bhh=0.

If App=Ahh=0, then A=[B,ρ]. For Hermitian matrices A, B, with vanishing pp and hh elements, we can define these useful vectors:

(AA)=(AmiAmi),

and find:

(AA)(BB)=Tr(AB)(AA)(BB)=Tr(A[B,ρ]).

Densities of HF-BCS and HFB states

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Wick's theorem

Say we want

Particle-Hole picture

For many-body systems, it is useful to use basis states that are labeled as deviations/excitations from some reference many body Slater determinant (vs states with N creation operators acting on the vacuum):

|ϕ=iNai|0

Pasted image 20230111175656.png
Occupied single particle states below the Fermi level are hole states, and unoccupied single particle states above it are particle states.

Quasiparticle formalism

Very useful for Hartree-Fock and beyond. We start with a simple redefinition of the creation and annihilation operators, like so (see Notation and more):

am=bm,ai=biam=bm,ai=bi

Normal ordering w.r.t. |ϕ

We will use curly braces instead of N[] to distinguish from normal ordering from respect to the vacuum:

{B1B2Bn}(1)pbp1bpn

Everything else (fundamental contractions, etc) remains the same when swapping in the b operators.