A strong coupling theory for electron-mediated interactions in double-exchange models

Abstract

We present a theoretical framework for evaluating effective interactions between localized spins mediated by itinerant electrons in double-exchange models. Performing the expansion with respect to the spin-dependent part of the electron hopping terms, we show a systematic way of constructing the effective spin model in the large Hund's coupling limit. As a benchmark, we examine the accuracy of this method by comparing the results with the numerical solutions for the spin-ice type model on a pyrochlore lattice. We also discuss an extension of the method to the double-exchange models with Heisenberg and $XY$ localized spins.