The single particle potential in mean-field theory

The problem of determining the single particle energy in a mean-field description of interacting particles is considered. It is shown that the single particle energy must satisfy two consistency conditions, and a general procedure for obtaining the single particle energy from the pair energy is proposed. Interacting dipolar systems are examined, current approaches in the literature are discussed, and the usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated. (C) 2002 American Association of Physics Teachers.