Abstract
In this paper we discuss some general properties of the one-particle Green's function, for nonuniform many-fermion systems and the associated single-particle interpretation of physical properties of such systems. We consider, in particular, the ground-state energy, the density of particles in the ground state, and the single-particle excitation spectrum. The investigation is restricted to the case of a static external field and a system at zero temperature. Various general approximation methods are studied starting from one in which the self-energy operator is replaced by an Hermitian and energy-independent operator.