Effect of Spin Fluctuations on the Specific Heat of Weakly and Nearly Ferromagnetic Metals

Abstract

The specific heat due to the effect of spin fluctuations in itinerant ferromagnets is calculated by using the renormalized spin fluctuation theory of Moriya and Kawabata. The calculation continuously covers all the interesting temperature ranges, both below and above the Curie temperature. The specific heat is shown to be generally enhanced in weakly and nearly ferromagnetic metals. This is particularly so at low temperatures and the effect decreases as temperature goes up far more rapidly than the previous results based on the random phase approximation which generally over-estimates the spin fluctuation effect. An anomaly around the Curie temperature turns out to be rather small.