10.

6 Discussion and Outlook 551

The detailed form of n d for other dimensions is, perhaps, different

from (10.31) but whatever it may be, it can be stated that the leading
term in the small-q expansion is never linear in 7, as long as the lat-
tice dimensionality is finite. According to the exact treatment of the
Gutzwiller variational problem, in finite-dimensional systems there is no
Brinkman-Rice transition at all!
The nature of the Gutzwiller approximation became clarified by ob-
serving that it becomes exact for D = 00. Thus all our previous results
are found to be correct within the Gutzwiller variational description of
the infinite-dimensional Hubbard model. It follows that it is true that
at half-filling, a Brinkman-Rice transition is taking place in the manner
described in Sec. 9.3.
The reason why the quality of the Gutzwiller approximation im-
proves 88 we increase the dimensionality D , is the following: as we argue
in Appendix C, the approximation is based on neglecting the intersite
correlations caused by the antisymmetrical nature of the wave function,
i.e., the exchange hole effect. The exchange hole is quite long-ranged in
low dimensions, but it cuts off sharply in high dimensions and, roughly
speaking, shrinks to the central site as D + 00. This justifies using the
Gutzwiller approximation which is basically a single-site approximation.
At exact half-filling, the infinite-dimensionallimit is an isolated case:
there is a Brinkman-Rice transition for 1/D = 0 but not for any 1/D # 0
[420]. Therefore, just as far as the transition is concerned, we cannot
make a meaningful 1/D-expansion.
Returning to the case D = 1, the leading term of the ground state
energy is found to be

-=-(--)
(W
L
4 2 6t 2. ( l n E2u
) -l . (10.36)

On the one hand, in finite dimensions the Gutzwiller wave function

appears to do better than the Gutzwiller approximation would have led
us to think: in contrast to (9.52), we find a nonzero energy density at
large U. On the other hand, we are not happy to see that this energy
density is ascribed to a metallic state: contrary to our hopes, we did
not find the Mott transition. Besides, the above asymptotic result does
not show the correct U/t-dependence: the correct energy density would