Static spin exchange-correlation kernel of the uniform electron gas at finite temperature

Abstract

We determine the temperature and momentum dependence of the static spin exchange--correlation kernel of the unpolarized three-dimensional uniform electron gas using variational diagrammatic Monte Carlo. The calculations cover metallic densities with Wigner--Seitz radii $r_s=1-4$ and temperatures $T/T_F=1/16-8$, where $T_F$ is the Fermi temperature. At low temperature, the calculated kernel approaches established ground-state parametrizations. Heating suppresses its Fermi-scale minimum and reduces its magnitude, while the relative momentum dependence evolves nonmonotonically through the warm-dense crossover. At the two highest temperatures studied, the spin kernel is nearly constant over $q\le 2k_F$, where $k_F$ is the Fermi wave number. The charge kernel at $r_s=1$ retains pronounced momentum dependence under the same conditions, making a local approximation to the XC kernel more accurate in the spin channel over this interval. The directly sampled uniform response determines the XC free-energy curvature with respect to spin polarization, independently of a fitted polarization dependence. This curvature sets the interaction contribution to the free-energy cost of weak polarization and differs by several percent from the Groth--Dornheim--Bonitz parametrization at elevated temperatures. These results provide momentum-resolved reference data for finite-temperature spin-response theories and direct constraints on the spin dependence of thermal free-energy functionals.