Path-integral approaches to strongly-coupled quantum many-body systems

TL;DR

This thesis explores path-integral methods for finite-size strongly-coupled quantum systems, focusing on symmetry restoration and comparing various advanced techniques like resummation, effective actions, and functional renormalization group approaches.

Contribution

It systematically investigates and compares multiple state-of-the-art path-integral techniques for finite quantum systems, emphasizing symmetry restoration and the role of collective degrees of freedom.

Findings

Path-integral methods effectively restore symmetries in finite systems.

Connections between different resummation and effective action techniques are established.

Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations influence the effectiveness of various approaches.

Abstract

The core of this thesis is the path-integral formulation of quantum field theory and its ability to describe strongly-coupled quantum many-body systems of finite size. Collective behaviors can be efficiently described in such systems through the implementation of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in mean-field approaches. However, as the thermodynamic limit does not make sense in finite-size systems, the latter can not exhibit any SSB and the symmetries which are broken down at the mean-field level must therefore be restored. The efficiency of theoretical approaches in the treatment of finite-size quantum systems can therefore be studied via their ability to restore spontaneously broken symmetries. In this thesis, a zero-dimensional $O(N)$ model is taken as a theoretical laboratory to perform such an investigation with many state-of-the-art path-integral techniques: perturbation theory combined with various resummation methods (Pad\'e-Borel, Borel-hypergeometric, conformal mapping), enhanced versions of perturbation theory (transseries derived via Lefschetz thimbles, optimized perturbation theory), self-consistent perturbation theory based on effective actions (auxiliary field loop expansion (LOAF), Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis (CJT) formalism, 4PPI effective action, ...), functional renormalization group (FRG) techniques (FRG based on the Wetterich equation, DFT-FRG, 2PI-FRG). Connections between these different techniques are also emphasized. In addition, the path-integral formalism provides us with the possibility to introduce collective degrees of freedom in an exact fashion via Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations: the effect of such transformations on the aforementioned methods is also examined in detail.