Theory of Many-Boson Systems: Pair Theory

Abstract

The many-boson system with repulsive interactions is treated by a variational method based on a variational trial state of an exponential pair-excitation type obtained by a generalization of that of Bogoliubov; the treatment is closely related to an intermediate-coupling approximation with respect to pairs. The nonlinear integral equation which determines the variational ground state is derived, and various properties of this ground state and the associated excited states are examined. The resultant low-lying spectrum lies below that of Bogoliubov by an amount proportional to the total number of particles. The variational principle is shown to produce rigorous energy eigenvalue differences for the pair part of the Hamiltonian. The variational states, however, still exhibit unphysical features characteristic of pair-excitation states: The pair correlation function does not go to zero at zero particle separation and the phonon spectrum exhibits a gap above the ground state. It is suggested that these features can be removed by using states which take into account excitation of momentum-conserving groups of more than two particles.