Quantum cluster approaches offer new perspectives to study the complexities of macroscopic correlated fermion systems. These approaches can be understood as generalized mean-field theories. Quantum cluster approaches are non-perturbative and are always in the thermodynamic limit. Their quality can be systematically improved, and they provide complementary information to finite size simulations. They have been studied intensively in recent years and are now well established. After a brief historical review, this article comparatively discusses the nature and advantages of these cluster techniques. Applications to common models of correlated electron systems are reviewed. 1

We introduce an extension of the dynamical mean field approximation (DMFA) which retains the causal properties and generality of the DMFA, but allows for systematic inclusion of non-local corrections. Our technique maps the problem to a self-consistently embedded cluster. The DMFA (exact result) is recovered as the cluster size goes to one (infinity). As a demonstration, we study the Falicov-Kimball model using a variety of cluster sizes. We show that the sum rules are preserved, the spectra are positive definite, and the non-local correlations suppress the CDW transition temperature.Introduction. Strongly interacting electron systems have been on the forefront of theoretical and experimental interest for several decades. This interest has intensified with the discovery of a variety of Heavy Fermion and related non Fermi liquid systems and the high-T c superconductors. In all these systems strong electronic interactions play a dominant role in the selection of at least the low temperature phase. The simplest theoretical models of strongly correlated electrons, the Hubbard model (HM) and the periodic Anderson model (PAM), have remained unsolved in more than one dimension despite a multitude of sophisticated techniques introduced since the inception of the models.With the ground breaking work by Metzner and Vollhardt [1] it was realized that these models become significantly simpler in the limit of infinite dimensions, D = ∞. Namely, provided that the kinetic energy is properly rescaled as 1/ √ D, they retain only local, though nontrivial dynamics: The self energy is constant in momentum space, though it has a complicated frequency dependence. Consequently, the HM and PAM map onto a generalized single impurity Anderson model. The thermodynamics and phase diagram have been obtained numerically by quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) and other methods. [2][3][4] The name dynamical mean field approximation (DMFA) has been coined for approximations in which a purely local self energy (and vertex function) is assumed in the context of a finite dimensional electron system. While it has been shown that this approximation captures many key features of strongly correlated systems even in a finite dimensional context, the DMFA, which leads to an effective single site theory, has some obvious limitations. For example, the DMFA can not describe phases with explicitly nonlocal order parameters, such as d-wave superconductivity, nor can it describe

We recently introduced the dynamical cluster approximation(DCA), a new technique that includes short-ranged dynamical correlations in addition to the local dynamics of the dynamical mean field approximation while preserving causality. The technique is based on an iterative self-consistency scheme on a finite size periodic cluster. The dynamical mean field approximation (exact result) is obtained by taking the cluster to a single site (the thermodynamic limit). Here, we provide details of our method, explicitly show that it is causal, systematic, Φ-derivable, and that it becomes conserving as the cluster size increases. We demonstrate the DCA by applying it to a Quantum Monte Carlo and Exact Enumeration study of the two-dimensional Falicov-Kimball model. The resulting spectral functions preserve causality, and the spectra and the CDW transition temperature converge quickly and systematically to the thermodynamic limit as the cluster size increases.

We derive general expressions for the current and shot noise, taking into account non-Markovian memory effects. In generalization of previous approaches our theory is valid for arbitrary Coulomb interaction and coupling strength and is applicable to quantum dots and more complex systems like molecules. A diagrammatic expansion up to second-order in the coupling strength, taking into account co-tunneling processes, allows for a study of transport in a regime relevant to many experiments. As an example, we consider a single-level quantum dot, focusing on the Coulombblockade regime. We find super-Poissonian shot noise due to spin-flip co-tunneling processes at an energy scale different from the one expected from first-order calculations, with a sensitive dependence on the coupling strength.