On the Mean-Field Limit of Bosons with Coulomb Two-Body Interaction
arXiv:0805.4299 · doi:10.1007/s00220-009-0754-z
Abstract
In the mean-field limit the dynamics of a quantum Bose gas is described by a Hartree equation. We present a simple method for proving the convergence of the microscopic quantum dynamics to the Hartree dynamics when the number of particles becomes large and the strength of the two-body potential tends to 0 like the inverse of the particle number. Our method is applicable for a class of singular interaction potentials including the Coulomb potential. We prove and state our main result for the Heisenberg-picture dynamics of "observables", thus avoiding the use of coherent states. Our formulation shows that the mean-field limit is a "semi-classical" limit.
Corrected typos and included an elementary proof of the Kato smoothing estimate (Lemma 6.1)