Electron Spectrum Topology and Giant Density-of-States Singularities in Cubic Lattices

Abstract

The topology of isoenergetic surfaces in reciprocal space for simple (sc), body-centered (bcc), and face-centered (fcc) cubic lattices is investigated in detail in the tight-binding approximation, taking into account the transfer integrals between the nearest and next neighbors $t$ and $t^{\prime }$. It is shown that, for values $\tau =t^{\prime }/t={\tau }_{\ast }$ corresponding to a change in the topology of surfaces, lines and surfaces of $\mathbf{k}$-van Hove points can be formed. With a small deviation of $\tau$ from these singular values, the spectrum in the vicinity of the van Hove line (surface) is replaced by a weak dependence on $\mathbf{k}$ in the vicinity of several van Hove points that have a giant mass proportional to $|\tau -{\tau }_{\ast }{|}^{-1}$. Singular contributions to the density of states near peculiar $\tau$ values are considered; analytical expressions for the density of states being obtained in terms of elliptic integrals. It is shown that in a number of cases the maximum value of the density of states is achieved at energies corresponding not to $\mathbf{k}$-points on the Brillouin zone edges, but to its internal points in highly symmetrical directions. The corresponding contributions to electron and magnetic properties are treated, in particular, in application to weak itinerant magnets.

10 pages

References in corpus (2)

• Local magnetic moments in iron and nickel at ambient and Earth's core conditions
• Kohn anomalies in momentum dependence of magnetic susceptibility of some three-dimensional systems

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Effect of disorder on density of states and conductivity in higher order van Hove singularities in two dimensional bands
• Giant density-of-states van Hove singularities in the face-centered cubic lattice
• Incommensurate magnetic order in rare earth and transition metal compounds with local moments
• Ferromagnetic instability in itinerant fcc lattice electron systems with higher order van Hove singularities: Functional renormalization group study
• Metal-insulator transition and antiferromagnetism in the generalized Hubbard model: Treatment of correlation effects
• Itinerant electron metamagnetism for lattices with van Hove density-of-states singularities near the Fermi level