Nambu-Jona-Lasinio models beyond the mean-field approximation

Inspired by the model of Nambu and Jona-Lasinio, various Lagrangians are considered for a system of interacting quarks. Employing standard techniques of many-body theory, the scalar part of the quark self-energy is calculated including terms up to second order in the interaction. Results obtained for the single-particle Green's function are compared with those which only account for the mean-field or Hartree-Fock term in the self-energy. Depending on the explicit form of the Lagrangian, the second-order contributions range between 4 and 90 percent of the leading Hartree-Fock term. This leads to a considerable momentum dependence of the self-energy and the effective mass of the quarks.