456 Ch.

8 Ferromagnetism in Hubbard Models

for n + 1 - 0, Et = zt, thus ICJ N(1 - n)2,and AE is dominated by

AE? > 0. All in all, at the SKA level and even in better approxima-
tions, the Nagaoka state is stable for all 0 < n < 1. On the other hand,
saturated ferromagnetism seems to be absent for n > 1.
Naturally, we should not forget that the SKA treatment gives a very
optimistic forecast about the chances of ferromagnetism, and we should
seek independent evidence if we insist on exploring the “fcc route to
ferromagnetism”. Since we are now speaking about a D = 3 system,
nothing prevents the order (if any) to be present up to a Curie temper-
ature Tc. Ulmke [416] performed a Quantum Monte Carlo calculation
to find out about ordering at finite temperatures and found that Tc is
either very small, or vanishing. This sounds quite bad but not all is lost
yet: switching on the next-nearest-neighbour hopping t2, we can explore
a whole range of fcc models. For instance, we may recall (4.75) which
says that for t 2 = t1/2, the singularity is strengthened to a l / d G be-
haviour. However, demanding t 2 = t1/2 would be an artificial assump-
tion and luckily, we do not need it at all. For the range 0 < t 2 < t1/2,
the DOS does not diverge; it has merely a big peak near (but not exactly
at) the bottom of the band. This is not unlike the canonical behaviour
of the 3d band on the fcc lattice, based on realistic electronic structure
calculations [14]. Ulmke found that choosing t 2 = t 1 / 4 , and U M 3W
(W being the bandwidth), Tc is non-vanishing between n M 0.15 and
n “N 0.85, rising to the respectable value Tc 0.02-0.025W around, and
N

somewhat above, quarter-filling (Fig. 8.8, left). The figure also shows
that a narrow range of antiferromagnetism pushes the FM phase away
from the immediate vicinity of half-filling. One of the reasons why the
fcc lattice gives good chances to FM is just that it is a lattice for which
antiferromagnetic interactions are frustrated, and this is reflected in the
narrowness of the AFM phase.
Using a realistic W N 2eV, and choosing n = 0.65, one arrives at

10 - n 3 d-
Tc M 600K, which is not bad at all for fcc Ni which has a 3d-hole density
0.6 ! Perhaps too good, considering that we did not take
into account the degeneracy of the 3d band, or Hund’s rule coupling, to
arrive at the result? Well, though one could argue that Ni has 80 few 3d
holes that the degeneracy of the d-shell cannot play any significant role,
we had better take the numerical coincidence as merely suggestive. It