400 Ch.

7 Itinerant Electron Magnetism

hexagonal e-Fe phase which is apparently non-magnetic [443]. LSDA

theory predicts that while bcc iron is magnetic for a broad range of the
lattice constant, for the hexagonal phase the Stoner instability should
be a first-order transition, with the magnetization appearing abruptly,
at a lattice constant which is somewhat larger than what one actually
finds in eFe. It is a significant achievement that LSDA consistently
predicts ferromagnetic TM to be ferromagnetic, and non-magnetic ones
to be non-magnetic, even in borderline cases like that of eFe. Also the
T = 0 magnetization (which is shown as Psat in the Table 7.1) is given
accurately by the calculations. - The strongly ferromagnetic Co and Ni
have I p ( e ~ well
) above 1, while Pd somewhat below.

YFe2 1.48 1.4 542 cubic FM

Y c02 0.85 - - cubic EEP
ZrZn2 0.12 1.015 21-27 4 WIF
MnSi 0.4 1.03 29 5.3 cubic WIF

Table 7.1: The magnetic properties of some T M elements, and of several intermetal-
lic compounds discussed in the text. The types of magnetism: FM: ferromagnet with
strong moments, WIF: weak itinerant ferromagnet, EEP: exchange-enhanced para-
magnet. psat is the T = 0 magnetic moment per atom (elements), or per formula
unit (compounds). Experimental data are taken from [442] (elements), [290] (WIF),
1751 (Fey2 and CoY2) while theoretical estimates are from sources cited in the text.

It is clear that I ~ ( E Fis) useful for systematizing the results, but we

have to add a remark as to its meaning in the Table above. We will learn
in Ch. 8 (see particularly the Discussion on p. 458) that the Hartree-
Fock criterion (7.24), and also its generalization (8.37) for degenerate
bands, is grossly misleading, thus I cannot be the bare U . Then what
do we mean by claiming an excellent agreement between the observed
behaviour and the Stoner condition? As explained previously, I (and, of