Extended Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory for degenerate Bose systems

An extension of the Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov (HFB) theory of degenerate Bose systems in which the coupling between one and two quasi-particles is taken into account is developed. The excitation operators are written as linear combinations of one and two HFB quasi-particles. Excitation energies and quasi-particle amplitudes are given by generalized Bogoliubov equations. The excitation spectrum has two branches. The first one is a discrete branch which is gapless and has a phonon character at large wavelength and, contrarily to HFB, is always stable. This branch is detached from a second, continuum branch whose threshold, at fixed total momentum, coincides with the two quasi-particle threshold of the HFB theory. The gap between the two branches at P = 0 is twice the HFB gap, which thus provides for the relevant energy scale. Numerical results for a specific case are given.