Short-ranged correlations and the ferromagnetic electron gas

A discussion of the various properties of pair correlation functions of a magnetic electron gas is presented. The cusp conditions obeyed by the many-electron wave functions for a pair of electrons with parallel and antiparallel spins in close proximity are expressed as derivative conditions on the corresponding parallel-and antiparallel-spin pair correlation functions. In particular, it is shown that in a fully ferromagnetic gas the parallel spin correlations determine the correlation energy whereas in the paramagnetic case, this function is of less importance in comparison to the antiparallel-spin correlation function. In the high-momentum limit, it is found that the momentum distribution of electrons is dominated by antiparallel-spin correlations in the partially magnetic case whereas in the fully ferromagnetic case, it is dominated by parallel-spin correlations but is smaller by a factor of q-2. A calculation of the parallel-spin correlation function for the ferromagnetic gas in perturbation theory is presented. A model for the exchange correlation energy of the system which takes into account the exact conditions given here is proposed. Corresponding results for the two-dimensional electron gas are also stated. © 1978 The American Physical Society.