Interacting fermions in one dimension: The Tomonaga-Luttinger model

Abstract

The theoretical description of interacting fermions in one spatial dimension is simplified by the fact that the low energy spectrum of noniteracting fermions is identical to the one of a harmonic chain. This fermion-boson transmutation allows to describe interacting fermions as a system of coupled oscillators. Tomonaga's model of interacting nonrelativistic fermions on a ring is presented and first discussed in low order perturbation theory. After introducing the concept of two independent species of right and left moving fermions the exact solution of the Tomonaga-Luttinger model is discussed in detail. The momentum distribution and spectral functions are calculated using the method of the bosonization of the field operator. The general Luttinger liquid phenomenology is shortly discussed.