Some results in the theory of interacting electron systems

The expressions for the longitudinal dielectric function, spin and orbital susceptibilities in the static, long wavelength limit are evaluated by solving the corresponding linearized vertex functions exactly in this limit. The plasma dispersion relation to leading order in the long wave limit is similarly obtained. These are compared with the corresponding results obtained previoulsy by us by a variational solution to the same vertex equations. It is established that the variational method gives the exact results in the static, zero wave vector limit, involving the proper renormalizations. The plasma dispersion relation is found to be the same as in the exact calculation whereas the coefficient of q² in the static density correlation function has an important additional contribution to the variational result. Applications of these results are briefly discussed.