Enhancement of the Curie temperature in small particles of weak itinerant ferromagnets

Abstract

Self-consistent renormalization theory of itinerant ferromagnets is used to calculate the Curie temperature of clusters down to approximately 100 atoms in size. In these clusters the electrons responsible for the magnetic properties are assumed to be (weakly) itinerant. It is shown that the Curie temperature can be larger than in the bulk. The effect originates from the phenomenon of level repulsion in chaotic quantum systems, which suppresses spin fluctuations. Since the latter destroy the magnetic order the resulting Curie temperature increases, contrary to expectations of the na\"{\i}ve Stoner picture. The calculations are done assuming that the energy levels of the cluster are described by the Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble of random matrix theory.