Variational path-integral treatment of a translation invariant many-polaron system

A translation invariant $N$-polaron system is investigated at arbitrary electron-phonon coupling strength, using a variational principle for path integrals for identical particles. An upper bound for the ground-state energy is found as a function of the number of spin up and spin down polarons, taking the electron-electron interaction and the Fermi statistics into account. The resulting addition energies and the criteria for multipolaron formation are discussed.