Influence of quasiparticle damping on magnetic stability

We propose a modified alloy analogy for the single-band Hubbard model, by which we investigate the possibility of spontaneous ferromagnetism in narrow energy bands. It is shown that a proper definition of the fictitious alloy enables self-consistent magnetic solutions to be found. The existence of spontaneous magnetism is mainly influenced by the lattice structure, the effective Coulomb coupling, and the band occupation. In accordance with the simple Stoner criterion, ferromagnetism appears in strongly correlated electron systems for band occupations, which locate the chemical potential mu in regions of high quasiparticle density of states. Rather realistic Curie temperatures are found. The macroscopic magnetic properties explain themselves via temperature-dependent quasiparticle densities of states, quasiparticle band structures, and respective spectral densities. It is shown how quasiparticle damping may depress quite substantially the stability of magnetic states by broadening corresponding spectral density peaks. Correlation effects lead to the expected splitting into two quasiparticle subbands (''Hubbard bands''), and under certain conditions to an additional exchange splitting of each of these quasiparticle subbands, as well as to a spin-dependent band narrowing, the combination of which gives rise to an unconventional ''inverse'' exchange shift at certain positions of the Brillouin zone.