Exact Green's function approach to RKKY interactions

Abstract

The Green's function~(GF) of two localized magnetic moments embedded in the electron gas is calculated exactly. The electrons are treated in the effective mass approximation and the magnetic moments are coupled with electrons by a delta-like~$s-d$ interaction. The resulting GF is obtained by the exact summation of the Born series using a generalization of the method developed by Slater-Koster and Ziman to non-commuting spin operators with the use of the Woodbury identities. The exact GF crucially depends on the value of the one-electron GF at the origin, denoted as~$g_0$. The Born series is convergent only if~$g_0$ is finite, which holds for electrons in parabolic energy bands in~$1D$, but not in~$2D$ and~$3D$. In the general case, the exact GF includes nonlinear combination of localized spins operators. A method of calculating matrix elements of these operators is given. For spins~$S_a=S_b = 1/2$ the exact GF is expressed as a linear combination of components of~$\hS_a, \hS_b$, and the exact range function~${\cal J}(r)$ is obtained as a double integral over analytical expression. For electron energy~$E=0$ and~$J g_0/2 = 2$ or~$J g_0/2=-2/3$ the range function and GF are singular. Poles of GF occur in the vicinities of singularity points and the resulting energies of bound states are calculated. There are three regimes of~$J$. For small $J$ the range function resembles RKKY one: it has the same period~$\pi/k_F$, the same decay character and a slightly different amplitude, usually within a few percent. This regime occurs for most frequently in the nature. For~$|J|$ comparable to~$|g_0|^{-1}$ the exact range function differs qualitatively from RKKY one,. For large $|J|$ the exact range function oscillates with the same period and power-like decay as the usual RKKY function but it has much lower amplitude decaying with growing~$|J|$.