A microscopic approach to phase transitions in quantum systems

Abstract

We present a new theoretical approach for the study of the phase diagram of interacting quantum particles: bosons, fermions or spins. In the neighborhood of a phase transition, the expected renormalization group structure is recovered both near the upper and lower critical dimension. Information on the microscopic hamiltonian is also retained and no mapping to effective field theories is needed. A simple approximation to our formally exact equations is studied for the spin-$S$ Heisenberg model in three dimensions where explicit results for critical exponents, critical temperature and coexistence curve are obtained.