460 Ch.

8 Ferromagnetism in Hubbard Models

At a = 0 the DOS is semi-elliptic - symmetrical, and the system shows

no inclination to FM, unless U is very high. The extent of the FM phase
is the largest for a = 1 where the DOS has a square root singularity
at e = -2, imitating the t 2 = t1/2 fcc model, However, one does not
need to go to this extreme. The DOS develops a strong, but finite, peak
near the lower band edge, as a exceeds 0.9 and this is all that one needs
to observe a robust ferromagnetism setting in at intermediate values
of U , and stable up to a Curie temperature of 0.02W. It should be
N

emphasized that, in spite of a superficial similarity, this is by far not the

same as the Stoner criterion (7.24) which also requires a large DOS. A
large peak of DOS satisfying the Stoner criterion could be at the center
of the band, or it could be one of two peaks which are at symmetrical
positions. These cases are, however, not favourable for ferromagnetism:
one needs a peak in one half of the band but not in the other.
We can understand this in simple terms as follows: for an electron
density n, the paramagnetic Fermi level is ~ ~ ( n / and 2 ) ,the average ki-
netic energy C -t. As we switch on a strong interaction, correlation
N

will effectively narrow the band, and the kinetic energy gain is dimin-
ished. The question arises whether we are not doing better by fully
) ?-electrons. If the
polarizing the Fermi sea, filling it up to e ~ ( nwith
band is symmetrical, this involves filling band states lying much higher
than ~ ~ ( n / and
2 ) , the energy gain is doubtful. However, with much
weight near the lower edge of the band, going to E F ( ~ implies
) filling
states which are still fairly low-lying, and the formation of a ferromag-
netic state is favourable. -- All in all, if we want to name the “driving
force” of ferromagnetism in the single-band Hubbard model, it is the
kinetic energy gain, in the sense that it does not get renormalized for
the fully polarized state, while it suffers a reduction in low-spins states,
thus it may lead to FM order if the band shape and band filling are
right. Technicalities aside, the reasoning is basically the same as for
Nagaoka’s theorem.
However, even if a ferromagnetic phase really exists, mean field the-
ory is grossly misleading as to its extent and stability. Let us com-
pare the (essentially exact) QMC results with the Hartree-Fock (HF)
predictions for the band filling dependence of the Curie temperature
Tc (Fig. 8.9, left). The band shape belongs to a = 0.98, particularly