New Magnetically Ordered State in the Electron Plasma of Metals

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new magnetic order in metals caused by Coulomb interactions, leading to a non-local magnetic state with long-range electron correlations, which could be experimentally observed.

Contribution

It introduces a novel magnetically ordered state in electron plasma of metals driven by Coulomb interactions, not involving spin polarization.

Findings

The ground state exhibits a non-local magnetic field.

The magnetic state has over twice the binding energy of unmagnetized metals.

The proposed magnetic order is experimentally testable.

Abstract

Within the simplest model of metals, namely a gas of electrons with Coulomb interactions, in the presence of a uniform background of positive charge to enforce electric neutrality of the system, we have derived a mechanism, by which the Coulomb interaction between the electrons generates a new kind of magnetism. The ground state of the metal is represented by a magnetically ordered state described by a non-local magnetic field. This non-local magnetic field does not produce spin polarisation of electrons, but induces a special long range correlation between electrons of opposite spin. This mechanism results in a theoretical value for the binding energy per electron, which is more than twice the corresponding value for the unmagnetised state of the metal. The new magnetic order proposed and analysed theoretically here, can in principle be experimentally tested.