New Approach to the Theory of Itinerant Electron Ferromagnets with Local-Moment Characteristics

Abstract

The understanding of ferromagnets, like iron, which exhibit localized moment behavior above the Curie point yet show itinerancy has long stood as a major theoretical problem. An account will be given of recent progress on this problem which was achieved through functional integral methods. This technique transforms the interacting electron system into an average over a system of noninteracting electrons moving in a Gaussian‐weighted external ``magnetic'' field which acts only on the electronic spins. For a single magnetic impurity in a free electron metal, a single approximation allows one to go from Pauli paramagnetism to localized moment behavior in a smooth manner as the atomic exchange interaction is increased. The two impurity problem leads to an effective exchange coupling as in the Heisenberg model, which is antiferromagnetic for the nondegenerate orbital case studied here. Application of the technique to homogeneous systems leads to damped spin waves in the ferromagnet in lowest approximation.