text:
# Self-energy analysis of frequency-dependent conductivity: Application to Pb, Nb, and MgB2 in normal state

## I INTRODUCTION

The frequency-dependent conductivity $`\sigma (\omega )`$ provides one of the most valuable and detailed information on the charge dynamics in a wide class of materials. It is analyzed using either the one-component or two-component models tanner . The two-component model interprets the $`\sigma (\omega )`$ as arising from a combination of two types of carriers, free and bound ones. The free carriers are modeled in terms of the Drude term and the bound ones in terms of various Lorentzian oscillators. However, the interpretation of the individual Lorentzian terms, most of which are usually due to inter-band contributions, is not straightforward.

In the one-component picture, referred to as the extended Drude model (EDM), on the other hand, the frequency dependence of the conductivity $`\sigma (\omega )`$ below inter-band contributions is described by extending the phenomenological parameters of the Drude model, the effective mass $`m^{}`$ and scattering rate $`1/\tau `$, to be frequency dependent as tanner

$$\sigma (\omega )=\frac{ne^2}{m_b}\frac{1}{1/\tau (\omega )i\omega m^{}(\omega )/m_b},$$
(1)
where $`m_b`$ is the electron band mass. The EDM interprets the experimentally obtained complex conductivity $`\sigma (\omega )`$ in terms of $`1/\tau (\omega )`$ and $`m^{}(\omega )`$ determined by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau (\omega )}}={\displaystyle \frac{\omega _p^2}{4\pi }}Re\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma (\omega )}}\right],{\displaystyle \frac{m^{}(\omega )}{m_b}}={\displaystyle \frac{\omega _p^2}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega }}Im\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma (\omega )}}\right],`$ (2)
where $`\omega _p=(4\pi ne^2/m_b)^{1/2}`$ is the plasma frequency, $`n`$ the electron density, and $`e`$ is the electron charge. The $`\omega _p`$ can be found by integrating the real part of the measured conductivity from the sum rule

$`{\displaystyle _0^{\omega _{max}}}𝑑\omega \sigma _1(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}\omega _p^2,`$ (3)
where $`\omega _{max}`$ is the cutoff frequency above which inter-band contributions begin to contribute. The subscript 1 and 2 refer to, respectively, the real and imaginary parts. The EDM has been successfully employed to analyze $`\sigma (\omega )`$ of the conventional metals as well as the heavy-fermions and high-$`T_c`$ cuprates puchkov .

For a class of correlated electron systems such as the ruthunates, Sr/CaRuO3, however, the EDM breaks down and yields unphysical descriptions of the materials such as the negative effective mass kostic ; yslee . Similar behavior is also found for some molybdates, Sm2Mo2O7 and Nd2Mo2O7 mwkim . These observations clearly signal the inadequacy of the EDM and call for a new way of analyzing $`\sigma (\omega )`$ which can be applied to a wide class of materials. We, therefore, propose to analyze the frequency dependent infrared (IR) conductivity in terms of the electron self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ instead of the phenomenological parameters of Eq. (2). The electron self-energy contains the full information on the coherent and incoherent parts of interacting electrons and, therefore, can describe the charge dynamics even when the EDM or the Fermi liquid (FL) picture is no longer valid. In this self-energy analysis (SEA) method, the electron self-energy is extracted by inverting the experimentally measured infrared conductivity through the functional minimization and numerical iterations as will be discussed in detail in Section III. The SEA may be considered as a microscopic generalization of the EDM, which can be applied to analyze the frequency-dependent conductivity data of the non-Fermi liquids as well as the Fermi liquids. Even for the FL where the EDM is expected to work, the SEA can yield quantitatively more reliable results than the EDM, especially for the FL with a strong electron-phonon coupling. The present paper is mainly devoted to a detailed description of the SEA method and its applications to relatively simple metals. For more complicated cases of strongly correlated electron systems including cuprates, molybdates and ruthunates, by which we were originally motivated, we plan to report the SEA results separately elsewhere. For these systems, qualitatively different results from the EDM results are expected.

After the Introduction, we will discuss the frequency-dependent conductivity $`\sigma (\omega )`$ expressed in terms of the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ and its relation with the EDM in Sec. II. This will clarify the inherent limitations of the widely employed EDM analysis for the frequency-dependent conductivity. We will then describe in Sec. III the formulation of the SEA method, which is reduced to the global minimization of a $`N`$-variable function. The SEA method will be applied to experimental data of Pb, Nb and MgB2 and the results are presented in comparison with the EDM analysis in Sec. IV. In Sec. V, we give a brief summary and some perspectives on the self-energy analysis method.

## II Optical Conductivity and Self-energy

The frequency-dependent conductivity $`\sigma (\omega )`$ can be obtained from the current-current correlation function, and is written in terms of the electron self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ as nam ; shulga

$`\sigma (\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{\omega _p^2}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\omega }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{f(ϵ\omega )f(ϵ)}{\omega \mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega ϵ)\mathrm{\Sigma }(ϵ)}},`$ (4)
where $`f(ϵ)`$ is the Fermi distribution function. We assumed a constant density of states over an infinite bandwidth and no long-range order. It is also assumed that the momentum dependence is much weaker compared with the frequency dependence, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\stackrel{}{k},\omega )=\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$, as in the dynamical mean-field theory, which renders the vertex correction vanish in the current-current correlation function georges .

The electron self-energy represents the effects of electron interaction with various excitations in a system. The imaginary part of the self-energy can be written as

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}d\mathrm{\Omega }[\mathrm{coth}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2T}}\right)`$ (5)
$`+\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }}{2T}}\right)]P_2(\mathrm{\Omega })+\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{imp},`$
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{imp}`$ is the frequency-independent contribution from impurities. $`P_2(\omega )`$ is the imaginary part of the effective interaction satisfying $`P_2(\omega )=P_2(\omega )`$ and $`T`$ is the temperature. The isotropically weighted phonon density of states for electron-phonon coupled systems is given by

$`\alpha ^2F(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}P_2(\omega ).`$ (6)
Once the self-energy is known, we use Eq. (5) to find the effective interaction spectrum $`P_2(\omega )`$ using a derivative with respect to $`\omega `$ at low $`T`$ or a convolution after Fourier transformations shulga .

In the zero temperature limit $`T=0`$, the $`\sigma (\omega )`$ of Eq. (4) is reduced to

$`\sigma (\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{\omega _p^2}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\omega }}{\displaystyle _0^\omega }𝑑ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega \mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega ϵ)\mathrm{\Sigma }(ϵ)}},`$ (7)
which means that in the low $`T`$ limit, only the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(ϵ)`$ between $`0<ϵ<\omega `$ contributes to the conductivity at $`\omega `$. This may be interpreted as $`\sigma (\omega )`$ being an “average” of $`1/[\omega \mathrm{\Sigma }(ϵ)\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega ϵ)]`$ between 0 and $`\omega `$. This, in turn, suggests that the information from the EDM analysis, which is directly obtained from $`\sigma (\omega )`$ using Eq. (2), is an average of the corresponding quantity from the SEA. This will be discussed in more detail below. The EDM can be obtained from Eq. (4) in an appropriate limit. The $`\sigma (\omega )`$ of Eq. (4) is reduced to the EDM form of Eq. (1) with $`m^{}(\omega )/m_b=1+\lambda (\omega )`$ provided that

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega ϵ)+\mathrm{\Sigma }(ϵ)\omega \lambda (\omega )i/\tau (\omega )`$ (8)
is satisfied shulga2 . For a FL, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )\lambda (\omega )\omega `$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{imp}\mathrm{\Gamma }\omega ^2`$, this condition can be satisfied for small $`ϵ`$ and $`\omega `$, if $`\lambda (\omega )`$ has a weak $`\omega `$-dependence. Therefore, the EDM can give a satisfactory description of $`\sigma (\omega )`$ for weak-coupling FL, where

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau (\omega )}}2\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega ),{\displaystyle \frac{m^{}(\omega )}{m_b}}1+\lambda (\omega )1{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )}{\omega }}.`$ (9)
In the weak-coupling limit, where Eq. (8) is well satisfied, the optical scattering rate $`1/\tau (\omega )`$ can be approximately written as shulga2 ; allen ; puchkov

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau (\omega )}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\omega }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}d\mathrm{\Omega }[\omega \mathrm{coth}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2T}}\right)`$ (10)
$`+(\omega \mathrm{\Omega })\mathrm{coth}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }}{2T}}\right)]\alpha ^2_{tr}F(\mathrm{\Omega })+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau _{imp}}},`$
where $`1/\tau _{imp}`$ is the impurity contribution and $`\alpha _{tr}^2F(\omega )`$ is a phonon density of states weighted by the amplitude for large-angle scattering on the Fermi surface, which has the same spectral structure as $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$, but their amplitudes can be lower. In this paper we will not distinguish the $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ and $`\alpha _{tr}^2F(\omega )`$ from now on. We note that there were several previous attempts to invert $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ marsiglio ; shulga . For instance, one may obtain $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ in the $`T=0`$ limit of Eq. (10) using

$`\alpha ^2F(\omega ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{d\omega ^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{\tau (\omega )}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _p^2}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{d\omega ^2}}Re\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{\sigma (\omega )}}\right],`$ (11)
where the second expression follows by using the EDM of Eq. (1). This formula, however, has limitations to be applied to the experimental IR data because large error bars are inevitable from the double differentials and it is valid only when EDM is valid and at $`T=0`$ shulga .

For strong-coupling FL where $`\lambda (\omega )`$ has a significant $`\omega `$-dependence, analysis based on the EDM becomes less accurate. For the marginal Fermi liquid, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )\omega \mathrm{ln}|\omega |`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )|\omega |`$, the EDM is expected to give somewhat less reliable description because $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )`$, unlike FL, deviates from the linearity in $`\omega `$. The situation becomes worse for non-Fermi liquid, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )\omega ^{1\alpha }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )\omega ^{1\alpha }`$ ($`0<\alpha <1`$), and the EDM may give misleading and qualitatively incorrect descriptions as were observed in the ruthnates kostic ; yslee .

## III Formulation of SELF-ENERGY ANALYSIS

We now present how one can analyze the frequency-dependent infrared conductivity with the formula of Eq. (4). As is explained below, the problem is reduced to a global minimization of a $`N`$-variable function. Using Eq. (4), it is simple to calculate the conductivity $`\sigma (\omega )`$ from a given self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$. What we are trying to do here is exactly the inverse of that: We wish to extract $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ from an experimentally measured $`\sigma (\omega )`$.

The SEA is implemented by defining the functional $`W[\mathrm{\Sigma }_2]`$ as

$$W[\mathrm{\Sigma }_2]_0^{\omega _c}𝑑\omega \left[\sigma _1(\omega )\sigma _1^{exp}(\omega )\right]^2,$$
(12)
where $`\sigma _1^{exp}`$ and $`\sigma _1`$ are the real parts of the experimental data and calculated conductivity using Eq. (4), respectively. Since the real part of self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )`$ can be obtained from the imaginary part $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ by the Kramers-Kronig transformation, we can consider $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ as the only independent function. The functional $`W`$ is positive definite, and has the global minimum of zero for the self-energy which reproduces the experimental conductivity data. The self-energies defined at the $`N`$ discrete frequencies, $`x_i\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega _i)`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$ ($`\omega _N=\omega _c`$), are taken as the $`N`$ independent variables of the function $`W(x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_N)W[\mathrm{\Sigma }_2]`$. The cutoff frequency $`\omega _c`$ is not necessarily equal to the $`\omega _{max}`$ of Eq. (3). Now, the problem is reduced to a global minimization of a $`N`$-variable function.

We note that, depending on the problems, other forms of the functional $`W`$ may yield better results. For good metals, for instance, whose mid-IR conductivity is very small compared with far-IR region,

$`W={\displaystyle _0^{\omega _c}}𝑑\omega [\mathrm{ln}\sigma _1(\omega )\mathrm{ln}\sigma _1^{exp}(\omega )]^2`$ (13)
works better than the form of Eq. (12). For the region where $`\omega >\omega _c`$, which we need to know for the Kramers-Kronig transformation, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ is taken as constant. A constant $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ for $`\omega >\omega _c`$ corresponds to the reflectivity $`R(\omega )1/\omega ^4`$, which is consistent with the standard procedure in the IR experiments.

The global minimization of $`W`$ is achieved via the functional derivative and numerical iterations. We start with an initial configuration of $`x_i^{(0)}`$. A good initial guess can be $`x_i^{(0)}=\frac{1}{2\tau (\omega _i)}`$ obtained from EDM analysis, or a negative constant value for the whole frequency range. Then, we move to new $`x_i`$ along the steepest descent direction of $`W`$.

$`x_i^{(new)}=x_i^{(old)}s{\displaystyle \frac{dW}{dx_i}}|_{x_i=x_i^{(old)}},`$ (14)
where $`\frac{dW}{dx_i}`$ represents the functional derivative of the functional $`W[\mathrm{\Sigma }_2]`$ with respect to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dW}{dx_i}}=2{\displaystyle _0^{\omega _c}}𝑑\omega ^{}\left[\sigma _1(\omega ^{})\sigma _1^{exp}(\omega ^{})\right]\mathrm{\Delta }|_{\omega =\omega _i},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \sigma _1(\omega ^{})}{\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \sigma _1(\omega ^{})}{\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }_1(ϵ)}}𝒫{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega ϵ}},`$ (15)
where $`𝒫`$ stands for the principal value, and the use is made of $`\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }_1(ϵ)}{\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )}=\frac{1}{\pi }𝒫\frac{1}{\omega ϵ}`$. The step size $`s`$ is chosen such that the $`W`$ is maximally decreased along the steepest descent direction. The $`\omega _p^2`$, which sets the scale of $`\sigma (\omega )`$ of Eq. (4) is updated at each iteration such that the calculated spectral sum is equal to the experimental spectral sum up to $`\omega _c`$. Note that this way of determining $`\omega _p`$ does $`not`$ require that $`\omega _c=\omega _{max}`$ of Eq. (3) and, therefore, the extracted $`\omega _p`$ is almost independent of $`\omega _{max}`$ and more reliable than that from the sum rule of Eq. (3). This enables us to determine $`\omega _p`$ more systematically as we will discuss in more detail below.

In general, the global minimization of a few hundred independent variables is an extremely demanding problem. In the present case, however, it is rendered tractable because of the following observations: (1) We know the value of the global minimum unlike general global minimization problems. It is exactly zero. (2) We have some ideas about the physically meaningful form of the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$. It should be a continuous function of the frequency and negative definite. (3) We have a better way to escape from local minima than trying a new random starting point, $`x_i^{(0)}`$: Take $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{(new)}(\omega )\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{(old)}(\omega )\sigma _1(\omega )\sigma _1^{exp}(\omega )`$. An estimation of this process can be obtained in following way. The contribution to the conductivity at a given frequency $`\omega `$ is dominated by the self-energy below $`\omega `$ in the low temperature limit due to the thermal factor of $`[f(ϵ\omega )f(ϵ)]/\omega `$ of Eq. (4) as discussed in Eq. (7). By modifying the self-energy to be proportional to the difference between calculated conductivity and the experimental data at each frequency, we can continue our minimization modifying the ‘wrong’ region without spoiling a ‘good’ region.

From the extracted $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$, other physical properties such as the plasma frequency, effective interaction between electrons, Raman spectra, and inelastic neutron scattering intensity can also be calculated. For instance, we use Eq. (5) to find the effective interaction spectrum $`P_2(\omega )`$ from an extracted $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ which was discussed in the previous section. An important byproduct of the SEA is that the plasma frequency $`\omega _p`$ can be determined more accurately than has been $`hitherto`$ practiced, which is necessary to determine the Drude parameters of Eq. (2). Conventionally, $`\omega _p`$ is determined by $`\omega _{max}`$ of Eq. (3) which, in turn, is taken such that the sum as a function of $`\omega _{max}`$ has the smallest slope. This procedure can be problematic especially for the materials without a sharp plasma edge in the reflectivity data. In contrast, SEA works in this case as well because the determination of $`\omega _p`$, which sets the scale of $`\sigma (\omega )`$, is almost $`independent`$ of the $`\omega _c`$ of the functional $`W`$. For instance, one can determine $`\omega _p`$ with only very restricted data between $`0<\omega <\omega _c(\omega _{max})`$. This will be illustrated for Nb below.

Another byproduct closely related to the $`\omega _p`$ determination is that we may separate the intra- and inter-band contributions more systematically. We can extract the self-energy of effective single-component carriers by fitting the low-frequency experimental conductivity up to $`\omega _c\omega _{max}`$. The conductivity $`\sigma (\omega )`$ calculated by substituting the extracted $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ into Eq. (4) is intra-band conductivity. This process, however, is more sensitive to $`\omega _c`$ than the $`\omega _p`$ determination.

We will demonstrate in the next section that the SEA is straightforward to implement to extract the self-energy from experimental IR conductivity without the local minimum problem. We have found that the SEA yields the same solution $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ from almost any initial configuration. The obtained solution $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$, therefore, seems unique.

## IV Applications to experimental data

We will now apply the SEA developed in the previous section to real materials, and demonstrate that it can be readily employed to analyze the frequency-dependent IR experimental data. In the first two parts of this section, we will analyze the simple metals, Pb and Nb. From the SEA, we can extract the self-energy of the materials, and from the extracted self-energy we can find the $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ using Eqs. (5) and (6). It can be compared with the measured $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ well established from the tunneling experiments wolf . But for such a good metal, it is a very demanding task to measure the conductivity in far-IR region, since the reflectivity is very close to 100 % there. Thus there exist few published conductivity data for Pb and Nb. For Pb, we take the experimental $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ obtained from the tunneling experiment and calculate the self-energy from Eqs. (5) and (6), and then calculate the conductivity from Eq. (4). This is taken as the “experimental” conductivity $`\sigma ^{exp}(\omega )`$ for Pb. After that, the real experimental data of Nb is analyzed pronin . The results are compared with those obtained from the tunneling spectra. The last part of this section is devoted to the SEA for the normal state IR conductivity data of MgB2 superconductor. We will argue from the SEA results that the small electron-phonon coupling constant $`\lambda `$ extracted previously from the $`T`$-dependence of the resistivity $`\rho (T)`$ and EDM analysis of $`\sigma (\omega )`$, which is too small to account for the superconducting transition temperature $`T_c`$, is most likely due to an underestimate of the plasma frequency $`\omega _p`$.

### IV.1 Application to Pb: Generated data

We take Pb as a test case of the proposed SEA because its $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ is well established from the tunneling wolf . The electron-phonon coupling constant $`\lambda `$ of this metal is known to be $`1.5`$. The frequency-dependent IR conductivity of Pb, however, is not available. Therefore, the IR conductivity data was generated with Eqs. (4) and (5) using the tunneling $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ at 200 frequencies up to $`\omega _c=15`$ meV with an equal spacing. We took the self-energy due to impurity scattering $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{imp}=1`$ meV and $`T=3`$ K as representative values. The generated conductivity in this way, shown in the left column of Fig. 1 with open circle, is taken as the “experimental” data $`\sigma _1^{exp}(\omega )`$. It was then fitted by the SEA as explained above to extract the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega _i)`$ without, of course, any information about the self-energy used to generate the conductivity. The results are shown in the solid line in the left column of Fig. 1. The extracted and experimental conductivities are almost indistinguishable. Note that the width (HWHM) of $`\sigma _1(\omega )`$ is not given by $`2\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega =0)`$ because of the substantial frequency dependence of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$.

In the right column of Fig. 1, we show the real and imaginary parts of the extracted self-energy in the forms of $`2\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ and $`1\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )/\omega `$, along with the generated experimental data. The extracted and experimental data are shown, respectively, by the solid line and open circles. They are practically indistinguishable. For comparison, we also plotted the EDM analysis of the experimental conductivity data, $`1/\tau (\omega )`$ and $`m^{}(\omega )/m_b`$, in dotted lines, using Eq. (2). As discussed in Eq. (9), $`1/\tau (\omega )`$ and $`m^{}(\omega )/m_b`$ correspond, respectively, $`2\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ and $`1\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )/\omega `$. The right panel demonstrate, however, that they can substantially deviate from each other even for the relatively simple metals. The EDM analysis in general yield smoother frequency dependences for $`1/\tau (\omega )`$ and $`m^{}(\omega )/m_b`$. This is expected because $`1/\tau (\omega )`$ is an “average” of the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ as discussed previously in Section II. The curve shown by the thin solid line in the lower picture was calculated by using the approximate formula Eq. (10), which is in a good agreement with the $`1/\tau (\omega )`$ from the EDM analysis shulga2 .

From the extracted self-energy, $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ can be obtained from a derivative with respect to $`\omega `$, $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )=\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )}{\omega }`$, which is valid at low $`T`$ (dotted curve) or a convolution of Eq. (5) (thin solid curve) shulga  as shown in the upper left inset of Fig. 1. The experimental $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ is shown in the thick solid line. The extracted $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ from the convolution is again almost indistinguishable from the experimental one. These results from the SEA show substantial improvements over the previous attempts marsiglio  based on the assumptions of both $`T=0`$ and weak-coupling limit. We argue from this example that even for the simple metals, for which the EDM can give the qualitatively valid description, the SEA can provide more accurate and reliable description of the material, which can be quite different from the EDM results.

### IV.2 Application to Nb

We now proceed to apply the present method to the experimental IR data of Nb. We used the far-IR conductivity data measured by Pronin et al. in the normal state at 9 K pronin . Their far-IR data are available from 84 up to 300 cm-1 (with constant data in the DC limit measured via a different method), which is a good example to demonstrate that the $`\omega _p`$ can be obtained without a full intra-band spectrum in the SEA.

We took $`\omega _c=250`$ cm-1 and $`N=200`$. For $`0\omega `$ 84 meV, we constrain $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ to remain constant. This implies vanishing $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ in the region as shown in the upper right inset of Fig. 2 and, consequently, a reduced $`\lambda `$, and the Drude behavior in $`\sigma _1(\omega )`$. The fitted (solid curve) and experimental (crosses) $`\sigma _1(\omega )`$ are plotted in Fig. 2. The electron-phonon coupling constant $`\lambda =\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(\omega )/\omega |_{\omega 0}`$ from the SEA is 0.51 which is somewhat reduced compared with the experimental value of $`0.91`$ wolf  as discussed above. The calculated plasma frequency is 7.8 eV while the experimental value is $`7.2`$ eV pronin . In the lower left inset, the extracted $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ is shown. The above results clearly demonstrate that the SEA works also for the case with only restricted data.

These two examples of the SEA establish that the method can indeed be applied to analyze the frequency conductivity and it can provide the most microscopic information of interacting electron systems, the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ and the effective interaction $`P(\omega )`$. The SEA can provide for the Fermi liquids more reliable and accurate information than the conventional EDM analysis. For the non-Fermi liquids, it is expected to provide qualitatively different information which is $`not`$ accessible with the EDM.

### IV.3 Application to MgB2

Let us now analyze the IR data of normal state $`c`$-axis oriented MgB2 film measured by Tu et al. tu , which we regard as being due to intra-band excitations of an effective single band system shulga . In Fig. 3(a), the experimental conductivities of Tu et al. at $`T=45`$ K and 295 K are shown together with the fitted conductivities using the SEA with $`N=300`$ and $`\omega _c=6000`$ cm-1. The solid curves represent the fitted conductivities, and the dashed and dotted curves, respectively, the experimental ones at $`T=295`$ K and $`T=45`$ K. The small discrepancies are due to phonons. In Fig. 3(b), the results from the EDM analysis are shown in the left column, and those from the present SEA in the right column. The solid and dashed curves are, respectively, for $`T=45`$ K and 295 K. Tu et al. found from the sum rule of Eq. (3) that $`\omega _p`$ is 14750 cm-1 which yields, through the EDM, a very weak electron-phonon coupling as shown in the left column of Fig. 3(b). They obtained $`\lambda _{tr}0.13`$ using the Bloch-Gr$`\ddot{\mathrm{u}}`$neisen formula to analyze the $`T`$-dependence of the resistivity, which is consistent with the EDM analysis tu ; marsiglio2 . To the extent that $`\lambda _{tr}\lambda `$, it seems too small to account for the superconducting transition temperature $`T_c=39`$ K. On the other hand, we found from the SEA that $`\lambda 0.56`$ and 0.41 at, respectively, $`T=45`$ and 295 K as shown in Fig. 3(b), which are substantially larger than what Tu et al. found. The local density approximation calculation yields $`\lambda _{tr}0.6`$ liu . One way of seeing the discrepancy between EDM and SEA is that the $`\omega _p`$ from SEA is larger than that from EDM. We found that $`\omega _p=16690\mathrm{cm}^1`$ at $`T=45`$ K, and 16740 cm-1 at $`T=295`$ K. If the enhanced $`\omega _p`$ are used in the EDM, the resulting $`\lambda _{tr}`$ are in good agreement with the SEA. As far as the EDM and the $`T`$-dependence of the resistivity are concerned, the enhanced $`\omega _p`$ resolves the problem of the small $`\lambda _{tr}`$.

With the SEA, we may go further and perform the spectral analysis to see the frequency range that contributes to $`\lambda `$, which can $`not`$ be carried out with the EDM analysis. $`\lambda =2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{\alpha ^2F(\mathrm{\Omega })}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$, where $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )=\frac{1}{\pi }P_2(\omega )`$ may be obtained from the extracted $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ using Eq. (5). The $`2\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ is shown in the right column of Fig. 3(b). The extracted $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ is shown in Fig. 4 together with those from tunneling tunneling  (dashed line) and LDA calculation liu  (thin solid line). They are shown in a wider frequency range in the inset. The extracted $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ from SEA are characterized by two frequency regions which make dominant contributions to $`\lambda `$; around $`\omega `$ 70 and 300 meV, which is, interestingly, consistent with the model proposed by Marsiglio marsiglio2 . The low frequency region around 70 meV is the contribution from the $`E_{2g}`$ phonon mode, while the nature of the high frequency region is not clear. The two regions contribute almost equally to $`\lambda `$: $`\lambda _{phonon}0.36(0.21)`$ and the total $`\lambda `$ is 0.56 (0.41) for $`T=45`$ K ($`T=295`$ K).

The extracted $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$, compared with the local density approximation (LDA) calculation, correctly captured the main $`E_{2g}`$ contribution but missed smaller contributions from other phonon modes; among the modes in the $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ obtained from the LDA calculation shown in Fig. 4, the modes whose $`\alpha ^2F(\omega )`$ are smaller than $`0.5`$ are absent in the SEA results. This, we suspect, may be a consequence of the broad features around 160 and 880 cm-1 in the experimental $`\sigma (\omega )`$, which were not predicted by phonon calculations tu  and possibly due to MgO impurities. We did not eliminate these contributions for the present calculations. This may smear out otherwise sharper frequency dependence of $`\sigma (\omega )`$, and reduce the electron-phonon coupling constant.

Apart from these discrepances, the SEA successively describes the frequency-dependent conductivity of the MgB2 and yields an increased $`\lambda `$ than the previous estimate. The SEA suggests, which made more accurate determination of $`\omega _p`$ possible, that the small $`\lambda `$ reported in the $`c`$-axis oriented sample is most likely due to underestimated $`\omega _p`$, and the total $`\lambda `$ from the SEA is substantially larger. However, the $`\lambda _{phonon}\lambda /2`$ still seems a bit too small to account for the $`T_c`$.

## V SUMMARY and discussions

In this paper we have proposed and demonstrated a microscopic way to analyze the frequency-dependent infrared conductivity, referred to as self-energy analysis, which is valid for the non-Fermim liquids as well as the Fermi liquids. Additional advantage of the self-energy analysis is that the plasma frequency $`\omega _p`$ can be obtained with a better accuracy. Through the self-energy analysis, we extracted the electron self-energy from the inversion of experimentally measured infrared conductivity, and the effective interaction between electrons from the extracted self-energy. After we demonstrated that the self-energy analysis method can be successfully applied for simple metals like Pb and Nb, we applied the method to the IR conductivity data of normal state MgB2. We have found that the $`\lambda `$ from the self-energy analysis is substantially larger than that obtained from the conventional analysis of the $`T`$-dependence of the resistivity and extended Drude model. The discrepancies between the self-energy analysis and conventional method for MgB2 is attributed to the underestimated $`\omega _p`$ from the conventional method. However, the $`\lambda _{phonon}`$ from the self-energy analysis still seems a bit small to account for the $`T_c`$.

Now that we have demonstrated that the self-energy analysis of the frequency-dependent infrared conductivity really works and can be very powerful, some concluding remarks and outlooks are in order. First, one may wonder if the solution to the global minimization of the functional $`W[\mathrm{\Sigma }_2]`$ is unique. The answer seems positive: the converged solutions, with different initial configurations, of given conductivity data all agree with each other. This means that the extracted self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ is indeed unique. Second, we have also checked if there is any spurious feature from the Kramers-Kronig transformation used in the present work to obtain the real part of the self-energy from the imaginary part. We therefore have fitted the complex conductivity by treating both the real and imaginary parts of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ as independent variables, which eliminates the use of Kramers-Kronig. This gives the same $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2(\omega )`$ with the procedure using $`W[\mathrm{\Sigma }_2]`$, demonstrating the reliability of the present method. Third, we plan to report results of the self-energy analysis of the conductivity for other correlated electron systems such as the high $`T_c`$ superconductors, Sm2/Nd2Mo2O7, and Ca/SrRuO3 mentioned in the introduction. The differences between the self-energy analysis and the extended Drude model analysis are expected to be $`quantitative`$ for the Fermi liquids, but be $`qualitative`$ for the non-Fermi liquids. It will therefore be very interesting to see what information the self-energy analysis provide for the strongly correlated electron systems. Also among the plan are extending the self-energy analysis to non constant density of states and broken symmetry states, and doing the analysis for other two-particle probes such as the electronic Raman and inelastic neutron spectra. We believe that the self-energy analysis seems timely and urgent in view of the mounting interests in the correlated electron or non-Fermi liquid systems for which the phenomenological analyses may yield inadequate results.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank J. J. Tu and A. V. Pronin for providing their experimental data for our analyses. We also thank Tae Won Noh, Jae-Hoon Kim, In-Sang Yang, Jaejun Yu, Yunsang Lee, Mi-Ock Mun, Jooyoung Lee, Seki Kim, M. J. Rice, D. van der Marel, D. B. Tanner, T. Timusk, F. Marsiglio, S. V. Shulga, and S. L. Cooper for helpful comments and discussions. This work was supported by the Korea Science & Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) through grant No. R01-1999-000-00031-0 and CNNC, and by the Ministry of Education through BK21 SNU-SKKU program.