Ferromagnetic instability in itinerant fcc lattice electron systems with higher-order van Hove singularities: Functional renormalization group study

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of ferromagnetic ordering in the non-degenerate Hubbard model on the face-centered cubic lattice within the functional renormalization group technique using temperature as a scale parameter. We assume the relations between nearest, next-nearest, and next-next-nearest hopping parameters providing higher order (giant) van Hove singularity of the density of states. The ferromagnetic instability formation with lowering temperature is described consistently in the one-loop approximation for a one-particle irreducible vertex of two-particle electron interaction. The chemical potential versus temperature phase diagrams are calculated. We find ferromagnetic order only for sufficiently strong divergence of the density of states and fillings in the vicinity of van Hove singularity. The obtained Curie temperature is more than an order of magnitude smaller than the results of the random-phase approximation. The main origin of the suppression of ferromagnetism is the screening of interaction in the particle-particle channel. We also do not find the pronounced tendency towards incommensurate order when the Fermi level is moved away from a van Hove singularity, such that the first order quantum phase transitions from the ferro- to paramagnetic phase are obtained.