Quantum chemistry in Fock space. I. The universal wave and energy operators

Abstract

The Fock space Hamiltonian H has a simpler structure than its projection Hn to n-particle Hilbert space. It is therefore recommended to diagonalize H—to the extent that this is possible—before one specifies n. Diagonalization of H is possible if one defines the diagonal and nondiagonal parts of an operator appropriately. It is shown that the diagonalized Fock space Hamiltonian L, called an energy operator, contains all information about the eigenvalues of H in a simply coded form. For a spinfree Hamiltonian, spin can be completely eliminated and all interesting quantities are expressible in terms of spinfree excitation operators (generators of the unitary group). The construction of the wave operator W and the energy operator L is formulated in terms of perturbation theory both in the strictly degenerate and the quasidegenerate version. Three variants are discussed that differ in the normalization of W, namely, a intermediate normalization, b and c unitary normalization with two additional conditions, b: WD=WD+, c:σD=(ln W)D=0. The transformation of operator products to normal product form is achieved by means of a generalization of Wick’s theorem to spinfree quantum chemistry. The contributions to the various orders of L, W, and σ are illustrated by means of diagrams. Only variant c guarantees a connected-diagram expansion of the Fock space energy operator L. None of the three variants satisfies a generalization of the Wigner (2n+1) rule, but with a slight change in the normalization from b to b′ or c to c′ (that does, in the case of c′, not affect the connectedness of the diagram expansion) L(2n) and L(2n+1) are expressible in terms of the W(k), k⩽n. A generalization of the variation principle for the Fock space energy operator is given and its consequences are discussed. Generalized Fock space Brillouin conditions are derived and a variational scheme for the construction of the energy operator is proposed. We finally compare the present Fock space approach with the traditional degenerate perturbation theory in n-particle Hilbert space. If the diagonal part ΩD of an operator Ω is defined in the spirit of the theory of the universal wave and energy operators, then the two approaches lead to the same results (for the same normalization), but the Fock space approach looks simpler and more transparent.