The Energy Density Functional theory is one of the most used methods developed in nuclear structure. It is based on the assumption that the energy of the ground state is a functional only of the density profile. The method is extremely successful within the effective force approach, noticeably the Skyrme or Gogny forces, in reproducing the nuclear binding energies and other bulk properties along the whole mass table. Although the Density Functional is in this case represented formally as the Hartree-Fock mean field of an effective force, the corresponding single-particle states in general do not reproduce the phenomenology particularly well. To overcome this difficulty, a strategy has been developed where the effective force is adjusted to reproduce directly the single particle energies, trying to keep the ground state energy sufficiently well reproduced. An alternative route, that has been developed along several years, for solving this problem is to introduce the mean field fluctuations, as represented by the collective vibrations of the nuclear system, and their influence on the single particle dynamics and structure. This is the basis of the particle-vibration coupling model. In this paper we present a formal theory of the particle-vibration coupling model based on the Green s function method. The theory extends to realistic effective forces the macroscopic particle-vibration coupling models and the (microscopic) Nuclear Field Theory. It is formalized within the functional derivative approach to many-body theory. An expansion in diagrams is devised for the single particle self-energy and the phonon propagator. Critical aspects of the particle-vibration coupling model are analysed in general. Applications at the lowest order of the expansion are presented and discussed.
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