Ab Initio Calculations of Magnetic Interactions in Magnetic Metal Alloys via the LSDF Approach

Abstract

Over the past decade or so, great advances have been made in our understanding of magnetism in metals as a result of the development of first-principles electronic structure calculations based on the local spin density functional (LSDF) theory. The author attempts to give a brief review of this aspect of modern theoretical magnetism with special emphasis on the significant role played by the LSDF in obtaining highly reliable ground state properties of magnetic metals and their alloys. On the other hand, some of the shortcomings of LSD will be pointed out and the current efforts to overcome them mentioned. Finally, the important interplay between magnetic and compositional correlations in magnetic metal alloys is discussed in view of some recent results from first-principles electronic structure calculations based on LSDF.