Itinerant-electron magnetism: the importance of many-body correlations

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether itinerant electrons can become ferromagnetic solely due to Coulomb repulsion, finding that many-body correlations prevent ferromagnetism in the electron gas and favor Wigner crystal formation.

Contribution

It demonstrates through calculations that many-body correlations suppress ferromagnetism in the 3D electron gas, challenging the traditional Stoner model.

Findings

Many-body correlations prevent ferromagnetism in the electron gas.

Wigner crystal formation precludes ferromagnetic transition at low densities.

Itinerant ferromagnetism is suppressed without lattice or band structure effects.

Abstract

Do electrons become ferromagnetic just because of their repulisve Coulomb interaction? Our calculations on the three-dimensional electron gas imply that itinerant ferromagnetim of delocalized electrons without lattice and band structure, the most basic model considered by Stoner, is suppressed due to many-body correlations as speculated already by Wigner, and a possible ferromagnetic transition lowering the density is precluded by the formation of the Wigner crystal.