Finite-momentum thresholds of an itinerant spin-flip continuum Created 2026-10-20 Updated 2026-11-05
The edges of an itinerant spin-flip particle-hole continuum follow from both excitation energy and occupation constraints. Consider a zero-temperature three-dimensional parabolic-band model with majority states occupied for and an entirely empty minority band. For exchange splitting and , a majority-to-minority flip carrying wavevector has
For , the scalar product is bounded by , giving continuum edges
The extremes occur at opposite points of the occupied Fermi surface along . At the interval collapses to the single exchange energy .
The empty-minority assumption requires sufficient splitting; otherwise Pauli exclusion principle blocks some final states and the edges must be recomputed over the allowed region. These are independent particle-hole thresholds, not a calculation of the collective ferromagnetic magnon dispersion. A collective mode below the continuum can therefore have a different low-momentum energy scale.
The constant term in the spin sum cancels. Linearizing the saddle point equation gives
The paramagnetic auxiliary-field curvature is
Consequently the Stoner criterion for the loss of local paramagnetic stability is
The printed uses energy measured from the Fermi level. For a smooth density of states, becomes a narrow unit-area peak at ; a singular density of states or appreciable temperature requires the integral form. The curvature establishes local instability, not the order or location of every possible thermodynamic transition.
With exact spin-rotation symmetry, itinerant ferromagnetism selects a magnetization direction. The two broken transverse generators form one quadratic type-B Goldstone boson, a long-wave ferromagnetic magnon with . Longitudinal amplitude motion is not symmetry-protected to be gapless. In a metallic ordered state, particle-hole excitations remain near each surviving exchange-split Fermi surface; these are distinct from the collective magnon. The itinerant spin-flip particle-hole continuum starts at exchange scale at in this simple mean-field spectrum, while its finite- boundaries differ. Spin anisotropy, spin-orbit coupling or an external field can gap the transverse mode; none is present in the stated model.