Landau quasiparticle (${\xi }_p$)

A Landau quasiparticle is a fermionic excitation connected continuously to a Fermi gas particle when interactions preserve the phase. Near an isotropic Fermi surface, its energy relative to the chemical potential is ${\xi }_p={ϵ}_p-\mu \simeq v_F(p-p_F)$, with Fermi momentum $p_F$ and Fermi velocity $v_F$.^[ref]

The Pauli exclusion principle restricts decay. For a three-dimensional normal Fermi liquid with regular short-range interactions, a representative low-energy lifetime model isHere $E_{\ast }$ is an energy scale and $A$ is dimensionless; sharpness requires $\hslash /{\tau }_p\ll |{\xi }_p|$ at zero temperature.^[ref]

For an original example, stipulate $A=1$ and $T=0$. At $|{\xi }_p|/E_{\ast }=0.02$, the decay energy is $0.0004E_{\ast }$, just $2\%$ of the excitation energy; halving $|{\xi }_p|$ reduces that ratio to $1\%$. Approaching the Fermi surface improves the particle description even though the microscopic interaction has not weakened. This quadratic illustration is three-dimensional; low-dimensional corrections require separate analysis.

Changing one Landau quasiparticle occupation changes the energies of others. To second order around equilibrium,Here $\mathcal{V}$ is volume, occupations are per momentum and spin state, and $f$ has units of energy times volume.^[ref]

For a toy two-state change at fixed volume, take $\delta n_a=\delta n_b=\eta$, $f_{aa}=f_{bb}=0$, $f_{ab}=f_{ba}=g\mathcal{V}$, and unperturbed energies ${\xi }_a={\xi }_b=e$. The expression gives $2e\eta +g{\eta }^2$. The factor $1/2$ counts the interaction of the same pair once; it does not halve each excitation's energy. This finite-state illustration only explains the bookkeeping of the Landau quasiparticle energy functional.

For a three-dimensional isotropic unpolarized spin-one-half Fermi liquid, define $f^s=(f_{\uparrow \uparrow }+f_{\uparrow \downarrow })/2$ and $f^a=(f_{\uparrow \uparrow }-f_{\uparrow \downarrow })/2$. Dimensionless Landau parameters use the spin-summed density of states per volume:$P_{\ell }$ is a Legendre polynomial; $s,a$ label spin symmetry. No extra $(2\ell +1)$ multiplies this expansion.^[ref] The superscript $s$ on $F_0^s$ is unrelated to the dimensionless wave speed $s$ below.

In a three-dimensional uniform isotropic continuum obeying the Principle of Galilean relativity, with one bare particle mass $m$, the Fermi-liquid effective mass satisfiesA band effective mass need not satisfy this relation.^[ref]

For the stipulated $m^{\ast }=2m$ in the occupation figure, this relation requires $F_1^s=3$ if those assumptions apply. At fixed $p_F$, $v_F$ is half its free-particle value, so moving by $0.04p_F$ from the Fermi surface costs approximately $0.02p_F^2/m$ instead of $0.04p_F^2/m$. The factor of three belongs to the three-dimensional angular average, not to a universal definition of effective mass.

The quasiparticle residue is the coherent pole weight of the single-particle Green's function. Its coherent spectral term $Z\delta (E-{\xi }_p)$ contributes $Z\Theta (-{\xi }_p)$ to the zero-temperature momentum occupation. A smooth remainder leaves a jump $Z$ at the Fermi surface; Landau quasiparticle occupations have a unit step.^[ref]

For the local illustrative distribution in the figure, put $x=(p-p_F)/p_F$ and$\Theta$ is the Heaviside step function. Its one-sided limits are $0.825$ and $0.175$, giving $Z=0.65$. The smooth term is stipulated; this local curve does not specify a normalized distribution over all momenta. In particular, $Z$ is neither the fraction of atoms above the Fermi surface nor $m/m^{\ast }$.