New Magnetically Ordered State in the Electron Plasma of Metals

Abstract

Within the simplest model of metals, namely a gas of electrons with Coulomb interactions, in the presence of a uniform background of positive charge to enforce electric neutrality of the system, we have derived a mechanism, by which the Coulomb interaction between the electrons generates a new kind of magnetism. The ground state of the metal is represented by a magnetically ordered state described by a non-local magnetic field. This non-local magnetic field does not produce spin polarisation of electrons, but induces a special long range correlation between electrons of opposite spin. This mechanism results in a theoretical value for the binding energy per electron, which is more than twice the corresponding value for the unmagnetised state of the metal. The new magnetic order proposed and analysed theoretically here, can in principle be experimentally tested.