Analytic Continuation of Multipoint Correlation Functions

Conceptually, the Matsubara formalism (MF), using imaginary frequencies, and the Keldysh formalism (KF), formulated in real frequencies, give equivalent results for systems in thermal equilibrium. The MF has less complexity and is thus more convenient than the KF. However, computing dynamical observables in the MF requires the analytic continuation from imaginary to real frequencies. The analytic continuation is well‐known for two‐point correlation functions (having one frequency argument), but, for multipoint correlators, a straightforward recipe for deducing all Keldysh components from the MF correlator had not been formulated yet. Recently, a representation of MF and KF correlators in terms of formalism‐independent partial spectral functions and formalism‐specific kernels was introduced by Kugler, Lee, and von Delft [Phys. Rev. X 11, 041006 (2021)]. This representation is used to formally elucidate the connection between both formalisms. How a multipoint MF correlator can be analytically continued to recover all partial spectral functions and yield all Keldysh components of its KF counterpart is shown. The procedure is illustrated for various correlators of the Hubbard atom. This article explains how multipoint correlators in the imaginary‐frequency Matsubara formalism (MF) can be analytically continued to the real‐frequency Keldysh formalism (KF). The physical information in both types of correlators is fully encoded in partial spectral functions (PSFs). We analytically extract PSFs from MF correlators and give explicit formulas for the MF‐to‐KF analytic continuation of two‐, three‐, and four‐point correlators.