Critical analysis of the mean-field approximation for the calculation of the magnetic moment in the Friedel-Anderson impurity model

It is shown that the calculation of the magnetic moment of a Friedel-Anderson impurity in mean-field theory is unreliable. A class of approximate solutions, which contains the mean-field solution as an element, is expressed in rotated Hilbert space and optimized. The optimal state has considerably lower energy than the mean-field solution and requires almost twice the Coulomb exchange U to become magnetic. Since most moment calculations of magnetic impurities, for example the spin-density-functional theory, use the mean-field approximation the resulting magnetic moments have to be critically reexamined.