Thermodynamic Green’s Functions and Spectral Structure

Abstract

Abstract Multiparticle thermodynamic Green’s functions, defined in terms of grand canonical ensemble averages of time-ordered products of creation and annihilation operators, are interpreted as tracing the amplitude for time-developing correlated interacting particle motions taking place in the background of a thermal ensemble. Under equilibrium conditions, time-translational invariance permits the one-particle thermal Green’s function to be represented in terms of a single frequency, leading to a Lehmann spectral representation whose frequency poles describe the energy spectrum. This Green’s function has finite values for both t>t′ and t<t′ (unlike retarded Green’s functions), and the two parts G1> and G1< (respectively) obey a simple proportionality relation that facilitates the introduction of a spectral weight function: It is also interpreted in terms of a periodicity/antiperiodicity property of a modified Green’s function in imaginary time capable of a Fourier series representation with imaginary (Matsubara) frequencies. The analytic continuation from imaginary time to real time is discussed, as are related commutator/anticommutator functions, also retarded/advanced Green’s functions, and the spectral weight sum rule is derived. Statistical thermodynamic information is shown to be embedded in physical features of the one- and two-particle thermodynamic Green’s functions.