# Why Self-Consistent Diagrammatic Perturbation Theory is ”just” Perturbation Theory

## I The Arguments

In this write-up, the advantages of the sea-boson technique are highlighted and contrasted with the short-comings of self-consistent diagrammatic perturbation theory(i.e. Feynman diagrams or its algebraic counterpart introduced by Schwinger). For more details the reader is refered to our published work . Here and henceforth the term ”the text” refers to the book by Kadanoff and Baym. For the sake of definiteness we shall focus here only on fermions and that too without spin(S=0) therefore we shall employ only one of the signs used in the text namely the lower sign corresponding to fermions. All equation numbers starting with the letters ”KB” are from this book. Let us start with the equation of motion for the Green function(KB 12-7).

$$(i\frac{}{t_1}+\frac{_1^2}{2m}U_{eff}(1))G(1,1^{^{}};U)=\delta (11^{^{}})+d2\text{ }\mathrm{\Sigma }^{^{}}(1,2;U_{eff})G(2,1^{^{}};U_{eff})$$
(1)   
where,

$$U_{eff}(1)=U(1)+d2\text{ }v(12)[i\text{ }G(2,2^+;U_{eff})n_0]$$
(2)   
here $`n_0`$ is the mean density of particles.

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^{^{}}(1,1^{^{}};U_{eff})=i\text{ }v_S(1,1^{^{}};U_{eff})G(1,1^{^{}};U_{eff})+id3\text{ }d4\text{ }v_S(1,3;U_{eff})G(1,4;U_{eff})\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }^{^{}}(4,1^{^{}};U_{eff})}{\delta U_{eff}(3)}$$
(3)   
The $`v(12)=\lambda \text{ }v(𝐱_1𝐱_2)\delta (t_1t_2)`$ is the bare Coulomb interaction and $`G(1,2;U=0)`$ is the full one-particle Green function in equilibrium and $`\lambda `$ is a dimensionless coupling constant. Further(KB 12-10),

$`v_S(1,3)=v(13)i{\displaystyle d2\text{ }d4\text{ }v_S(1,2)G(4,2)G(2,4^+)v(43)}`$

$$iv_S(1,2)G(4,5)\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }^{^{}}(5,5^{^{}})}{\delta U_{eff}(2)}G(5^{^{}},4)v(43)$$
(4)   
As it stands the above sets of equations are defined independent of perturbation theory. That is, $`\lambda `$ is not assumed to be small. We wish to argue that within the framework of perturbation theory, the Green function obtained from the above equations has a simple analytic structure in the vicinity of the origin of the coupling constant space ($`\lambda =0`$ ). More precisely, we argue that, following the letter and spirit of perturbation theory leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the one-particle Green function is an analytic function of the coupling constant, perhaps with zero radius of convergence. This is true even if the Green function is obtained ”self-consistently” (that is, by solving a system of coupled non-linear integro-differential equations). This state of affairs should be contrasted with the sea-boson method where we found that at least in one-dimension, the one-paricle Green function has a nonanalytic dependence in the coupling at the origin of the coupling constant space. Thus this feature is completely erased from diagrammatic perturbation theory due to the latter’s inherent and as it happens, drastic assumptions. The letter and spirit of perturbation theory demands that we solve for the correlation self-energy by expanding in powers of the (screened or shielded) Coulomb interaction. When this is done, it may be seen quite easily that the correlation self-energy is an analytic function of the coupling constant at the origin of the the coupling constant space. To see this more clearly let us first observe that the solutions to Eqs.( 1) and ( 3) together with KMS boundary conditions  are unique. Therefore the Green functions and self-energies possess unique analytic structures. Furthermore, if an analysis shows that a Green function is (and self-energy) analytic at the origin of the coupling constant space is consistent with the above sets of equations then indeed this is the only possible analytic structure possessed by these quantities. This is what we shall now argue. Let us retain only the GW-part of the correlation self-energy, that is, neglect all derivatives of the self-energy with respect to the effective potential as suggested by Kadanoff and Baym. When this is done one may proceed to convince oneself of the analyticity of the Green function as follows. Since we are interested in the neighbourhood of $`\lambda =0`$, one can argue that the zeroth order approximation to the full Green function is $`G_0(1,1^{^{}})`$, namely the noninteracting one. Then one may use this to evaluate the self-energy and the screened Coulomb interaction. Note that so long as we are sufficiently close to $`\lambda =0`$, no loss of generality is entailed by this procedure. In particular, a ”self-consistent” solution to this system for $`\lambda `$ sufficently close to $`\lambda =0`$ is equivalent to the usual pertubative procedure we just indicated. To proceed with the description of the iterative procedure, then one may re-evaluate the full Green function by including linear terms in $`\lambda `$ on the right-hand side of Eq.( 1). This procedure when repeated leads us to the unambiguous conclusion that the full Green function is indeed an analytic function of $`\lambda `$ at $`\lambda =0`$. Two points are worth stressing again. First is that this conclusion depends rather strongly on the fact that we have chosen to ignore the derivatives of the self-energy with respect to the effective potential. Only then are we able to reduce the system to a familiar set of integro-differential equations rather then a set of functional equations. The second is that having convinced ourselves that a Green function that is analytic at $`\lambda =0`$ is consistent with the above sets of equations, we are also led to the conclusion that this structure is unique since the Green function itself is unique. Thus if a skeptical reader tries to argue that maybe if one had started with an ansatz for the full Green function that is non-analytic in $`\lambda `$ then one would have found that this is also consistent with the above sets of equations. Not so. The reason as we just alluded to is uniqueness. Having said this, we would now like to highlight some of the advantages of the sea-boson method that we have introduced into the literature. There we found that for small enough values of the coupling, the momentum distribution(or the equal-time component of the full Green function) is nonanalytic in the coupling, thus demonstrating that the sea-boson method is superior. For the sake of completeness, we reproduce the results here.

$`c_k^{}c_k=n_F(k)+(2\pi k_F){\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}\text{ }{\displaystyle \frac{dq_1}{2\pi }}\text{ }{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{kq_1/2}(q_1)}{2\omega _R(q_1)(\omega _R(q_1)+\omega _{kq_1/2}(q_1))^2(\frac{m^3}{q_1^4})(cosh(\lambda (q_1))1)}}`$

$$(2\pi k_F)_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\text{ }\frac{dq_1}{2\pi }\text{ }\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{k+q_1/2}(q_1)}{2\omega _R(q_1)(\omega _R(q_1)+\omega _{k+q_1/2}(q_1))^2(\frac{m^3}{q_1^4})(cosh(\lambda (q_1))1)}$$
(5)   
here,

$$\lambda (q)=(\frac{2\pi q}{m})(\frac{1}{v_q})$$
(6)   
$$\omega _R(q)=(\frac{|q|}{m})\sqrt{\frac{(k_F+q/2)^2(k_Fq/2)^2exp(\lambda (q))}{1exp(\lambda (q))}}$$
(7)   
$$n_F(k)=\theta (k_F|k|),\text{ }\mathrm{\Lambda }_k(q)=n_F(k+q/2)(1n_F(kq/2))$$
(8)   
The interaction in the denominator present in the quantity $`\lambda (q)`$ means that the momentum distribution is nonanalytic in the coupling at $`v_q=0`$, thus making our claims concrete.

The author wishes to thank Mr. Erich Mueller for critical comments that led to this write-up. Thanks are also due to Prof. J.J. Song and her group at Oaklahoma State University for their support both financially and morally. The author may be contacted at setlur@mrlxpa.mrl.uiuc.edu.