8.

4 Instability of the Nagaoka State 451

It is difficult to judge the power of high-temperature expansion to decide

the nature of T = 0 ordering, but we have to keep an open mind.
Rather than trying to guess the eventual outcome, let us look back,
and draw conclusions from our solid results. The Hartree-Fock criterion
(8.13) would have made us believe that the Nagaoka phase covers most
of the ground state phase diagram, extending over all 0 < n < 1, and
from U N 4t upwards. Taking correlations into account has drastically
reduced the area which may be still permitted for a Nagaoka state,
changing its character from a supposedly robust, intermediate-coupling
phenomenon to a marginally surviving strong-coupling regime. The
square lattice Hubbard model may be ferromagnetic somewhere, but it
certainly is not a model noted for its ferromagnetism.

8.4.3 Lattice Structure Dependence of Ferromagnetism

in a Single-Band Model
Extending the studies to other lattices in D = 2, 3, and 00, we learn
that the shape and extent of the area in the T = 0 phase diagram,
which is covered by the fully spin-polarized state, depends very much
on the lattice structure [152]. Though the Nagaoka phase cannot be
equated with the ferromagnetic phase (there are reasons to worry about
systems with partially polarized ground states), still we can claim that
systems with a large Nagaoka region are genuinely inclined towards
ferromagnetism, while for systems with a small or vanishing Nagaoka
phase, the very appearance of ferromagnetic order is in doubt.
Though we know that the SKA trial state does not perform so well
as states with intersite correlations do, its simplicity allows to make a
comparative study of a number of lattices23. At the level of the SKA
states, the stability of the Nagaoka state hinges upon the band density
of states. To see this, let us discuss the limiting forms of AE(n,U = 00)
for n + 0, and for n + 1. First, let us assume that the DOS is finite at
both band edges: let it be Pb at the bottom of the band Q,, and pt at
the top of the band q (the assumption works in D = 2).
Near half-filling, we collect the terms of order (1 - n). Replacing
23Usingthe resolvent method, very similar conclusions can be reached for the most
general Basile-Elser states [155].