Naoto Nagaosa Quantum Field Theory in Condensed Matter Physics Translated by Stefan Heusler With 33 Figures 6 SpringerProfessor Naoto Nagaosa Department of Applied Physics The University of Tokyo Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan Editors Roger Balian CEA Service de Physique Théorique de Saclay F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France Wolf Beigibock Institut fiir Angewandte Mathematik Universitat Heidelberg, INF 294 D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany Harald Grosse Institut fiir Theoretische Physik Universitat Wien Boltzmanngasse 5 A-1090 Wien, Austria Translator: Stefan Heusler Bothestrasse 106 D-69126 Heidelberg, Germany Nicolai Reshetikhin Department of Mathematics University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-3840, USA Herbert Spohn Zentrum Mathematik Technische Universitat Minchen D-80290 Miinchen, Germany Walter Thirring Institut fiir Theoretische Physik Universitat Wien Boltzmanngasse 5 A-1090 Wien, Austria Elliott H. Lieb Jadwin Hall Princeton University, P.O. Box 708 Princeton, NJ 08544-0708, USA Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Nagaosa, N. (Naoto), 1958- (Busseiron ni okera ba no ryOshiron. English] Quantum field theory in con- densed matter physics / Naolo Nagaosa ; translated by Stefan Heusler. p. cm. ~ (Texts and monographs in physics, ISSN 0172-5998) “Originally published in Japanese by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo in 1995"-+.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-540-65537-9 (hardcover : alk. pa- per) 1. Quantum field theory. 2. Condensed matter. 1. Title. If. Series. QC174.45.N27 1999 530.14"3-de21 99.35358 Title of the original Japanese edition: Quantum Field Theory in Strongly Corn lated Systems by Naoto Nagaosa © 1995 by Naoto Nagaosa Originally published in Japanese by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo in 1995 ‘ISSN 0172-5998 ISBN 3-540-65537-9 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York ‘This work is subject to copyright. 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Mattes, Heidelberg Cover design: design & production GmbH, Heidelberg SPIN: 10683452 55/3144/di-5 4.3 2 1 0— Printed on acid-free paperPreface Why is quantum field theory of condensed matter physics necessary? Condensed matter physics deals with a wide variety of topics, ranging from gas to liquids and solids, as well as plasma, where owing to the inter- play between the motions of a tremendous number of electrons and nuclei, rich varieties of physical phenomena occur. Quantum field theory is the most appropriate “language”, to describe systems with such a large number of de- grees of freedom, and therefore its importance for condensed matter physics is obvious. Indeed, up to now, quantum field theory has been succesfully ap- plied to many different topics in condensed matter physics. Recently, quan- tum field theory has become more and more important in research on the electronic properties of condensed systems, which is the main topic of the present, volume. Up to now, the motion of electrons in solids has been successfully de- scribed by focusing on one electron and replacing the Coulomb interaction of all the other electrons by a mean field potential. This method is called mean field theory, which made important contributions to the explanantion of the electronic structure in solids, and led to the classification of insulators, semiconductors and metals in terms of the band theory. It might be said that also the present achievements in the field of semiconductor technology rely on these foundations. In the mean field approximation, effects that arise due to the correlation of the motions of many particles, cannot be described. It has been treated in a perturbative way under the assumption that its effect is small. How- ever, recently, many systems that cannot be described in this standard way have been discovered, and it became clear that a new world opened its doors. Connected to these new aspects of condensed matter physics, the most funda- mental problem of quantum theory — the duality between the particle picture and the wave picture — appeared in a very striking way. This particle-wave duality appears in the framework of many-particle quantum field theory as a canonical conjugate relation between the particle number and the quantum mechanical phase. From this point of view, in systems where the strong repulsive force be- tween the particles fixes the particle number, as is the case, for example, for the Mott insulator and the Wigner crystal, the charge density and the spin