Past exam of the advanced Quantum Condensed Matter Physics course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / Paper 1 / 1 / a

Use normalized plane-wave spin orbitals $V^{-1/2}{e}^{i\mathbf{k}\cdot \mathbf{r}}{\chi }_{\sigma }$ and fill a separate Fermi sphere for each spin species. Each spin state counts once, soIts kinetic energy per volume isThe spin-independent contact interaction has uncancelled direct energy $E_H/V=\gamma n^2/2$, with $n=n_{\uparrow }+n_{\downarrow }$. By the imposed background assumption this direct contribution cancels. For the Fock term the contact delta function sets the two spatial positions equal; its spin factors then select equal spins. The local one-body density matrix for each spin has diagonal value $n_{\sigma }$, givingCombining these results gives the contact-interaction Hartree-Fock spin energyHere $\gamma$ has units of energy times volume. The result is the model with the stated background subtraction; an isolated contact-interacting gas without that subtraction retains its direct contribution.