Ensemble Green's function theory for interacting electrons with degenerate ground states

An ensemble Green's function formalism, based on the von Neumann density matrix approach, to calculate one-electron excitation spectra of a many-electron system with degenerate ground states is proposed. A set of iterative equations for the ensemble Green's function and self-energy is derived and a simplest approximation corresponding to an ensemble $\mathit{GW}$ approximation is naturally obtained. The derivation is based on the Schwinger functional derivative technique and does not assume any adiabatic connection between a noninteracting and an interacting ground state.