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Using a realistic low-energy model, derived from the first-principles electronic structure calculations, we investigate the behavior of interatomic exchange interactions in CrO2, which is regarded to be one of the canonical half-metallic (HM) ferromagnetics. For these purposes we employ the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), based on the exact diagonalization of the effective Anderson impurity Hamiltonian, which was further supplemented with the theory of infinitesimal spin rotations for the exchange interactions. In order to elucidate the relative roles played by static and dynamic electron correlations, we compare the obtained results with several static techniques, including the unrestricted Hartree-Fock (HF) approximation, static DMFT (corresponding to the infinite frequency limit for the self-energy), and optimized effective potential method for treating the correlation interactions in the random-phase approximation. Our results demonstrate that the origin of the HM ferromagnetism in CrO2 is highly nontrivial. As far as the interactions in the neighboring coordination spheres are concerned, HF and DMFT methods produce very similar results, due to the partial cancellation of ferromagnetic (FM) double-exchange and antiferromagnetic (AFM) superexchange contributions, which represent two leading terms in the (ΔΣ)-1 expansion for the exchange interactions (ΔΣ being the intra-atomic spin splitting). Both contributions are weaker in the HF approximation due to, respectively, additional orbital polarization of the t2g states and neglect of dynamic correlations. The role of higher-order terms in the (ΔΣ)-1 expansion is twofold. On the one hand, they give rise to additional FM contributions to the neighboring exchange interactions, which tend to stabilize the FM state. On the other hand, they produce AFM long-range interactions, which make the FM state unstable in the single-site DMFT calculations for the minimal model, consisting of the t2g bands. Thus, the robust ferromagnetism in the minimal model, which can be easily obtained using static approximations, is fortuitous and this picture is largely revised at the level of more rigorous DMFT approach. We argue that the main ingredients, which are missing in the minimal model, are the direct exchange interactions and the magnetic polarization of the oxygen 2p band. We evaluate these contributions in the local-spin-density approximation and argue that they play a very important role in stability of the FM ground state in CrO2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the role of static and dynamical Coulomb correlation effects on the electronic and magnetic properties of individual Mn, Fe, and Co adatoms deposited on the CuN surface. For these purposes, we construct a realistic Anderson model, solve it by using the finite-temperature exact diagonalization method, and compare the calculated one-particle spectral functions with the LDA+U densities of states. In contrast to Mn/CuN and Fe/CuN, the cobalt system tends to form the electronic excitations at the Fermi level. Based on the calculated magnetic response functions, transverse relaxation times for the magnetic moments of impurity orbitals are estimated. To study the effect of the dynamical correlations on the exchange interaction in nanoclusters, we solve the two-impurity Anderson model for the Mn dimer on the CuN surface. It is found that the experimental exchange interaction can be well reproduced by employing U=3 eV, which is two times smaller than the value used in static mean-field LDA+U calculations. This suggests an important role of dynamical correlations in the interaction between adatoms on a surface. To estimate the correlated exchange interaction in the general case we derive a simple and transparent analytical expression demonstrating that the renormalization of the electronic spectrum due to dynamical correlations leads to a rescaling of the magnetic interactions compared to density functional results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rutile CrO2 is an important half-metallic ferromagnetic material, which is also widely used in magnetic recording. In an attempt to find the conditions, which lead to the increase of the Curie temperature (T C), we study theoretically the band-filling dependence of interatomic exchange interactions in the rutile compounds. For these purposes, we use the effective low-energy model for the magnetic t 2g bands, derived from the first-principles electronic structure calculations in the Wannier basis, which is solved by means of dynamical mean-field theory. After the solution, we calculate the interatomic exchange interactions, by using the theory of infinitesimal spin rotations, and evaluate T C. We argue that, as far as the Curie temperature is concerned, the band filling realized in CrO2 is far from being the optimal one and much higher T C can be obtained by decreasing the number of t 2g electrons (n) via the hole doping. We find that the optimal n is close to 1, which should correspond to the case of VO2, provided that it is crystallized in the rutile structure. This finding was confirmed by using the experimental rutile structure for both CrO2 and VO2 and reflects the general tendency towards ferromagnetism for the narrow-band compounds at the beginning of the band filling. In particular, our results suggest that the strong ferromagnetism can be achieved in the thin films of VO2, whose crystal structure is controlled by the substrate.