Polarization Propagator
To study excited states in meny-fermion systems, the limit of the two-particle (tp) propagator is used
(Eq. 1)
where "ph" means "particle-hole pairs". Substituting the explicit form of the Heisenberg operators and inserting a complete set of N-particle state one has
(Eq. 2)
where the definition of the time-ordering operator in terms of step functions is used also. The so-called polarization propagator is defined by Eq. (2) which includes the excited states only:
By employing the integral formulation of the step function, that is,
Random Phase Approximation
RPA in Finite Systems and the Schematic Model