Theory of magnetic ordering in the heavy rare earths: ab-initio electronic origin of pair- and four- spin interactions

Abstract

We describe an ab-initio disordered local moment theory for long period magnetic phases and investigate the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the magnetic states in the heavy rare earth elements (HRE), namely paramagnetic, conical and helical anti-ferromagnetic(HAFM), fan and ferromagnetic (FM) states. We obtain a generic HRE magnetic phase diagram which is consequent on the response of the common HRE valence electronic structure to f-electron magnetic moment ordering. The theory directly links the first order HAFM-FM transition to the loss of Fermi surface nesting as well as providing a template for analysing the other phases and exposing where f-electron correlation effects are particularly intricate. Gadolinium, for a range of hexagonal, close-packed lattice constants, c and a, is the prototype and applications to other HREs are made straightforwardly by scaling the pair and quartic local moment interactions with de Gennes factors and choosing appropriate lanthanide contracted c and $a$ values.