Paper detail

Local force method for the ab initio tight-binding model with spin-dependent hopping

To estimate the Curie temperature of metallic magnets from first principles, we develop a local force method for the tight-binding model having spin-dependent hopping derived from spin density functional theory. While spin-dependent hopping is crucial for the self-consistent mapping to the effective spin model, the numerical cost to treat such non-local terms in the conventional Green's function scheme is formidably expensive. Here, we propose a formalism based on the kernel polynomial method (KPM), which makes the calculation dramatically efficient. We perform a benchmark calculation for bcc-Fe, fcc-Co, and fcc-Ni and find that the effect of the magnetic non-local terms is particularly prominent for bcc-Fe. We also present several local approximations to the magnetic non-local terms for which we can apply the Green's function method and reduce the numerical cost further by exploiting the intermediate representation of the Green's function. By comparing the results of the KPM and local methods, we discuss which local method works most successfully. Our approach provides an efficient way to estimate the Curie temperature of metallic magnets with a complex spin configuration.