From Nagaoka's ferromagnetism to flat-band ferromagnetism and beyond - An introduction to ferromagnetism in the Hubbard model

It is believed that strong ferromagnetic interactions in some solids are generated by subtle interplay between quantum many-body effects and spin-independent Coulomb interactions between electrons. It is a challenging problem to verify this scenario in the Hubbard model, which is an idealized model for strongly interacting electrons in a solid. Nagaoka's ferromagnetism is a well-known rigorous example of ferromagnetism in the Hubbard model. It deals with the limiting situation in which there is one fewer electron than in the half-filling and the on-site Coulomb interaction is infinitely large. There are relatively new rigorous examples of ferromagnetism in Hubbard models called flat-band ferromagnetism. Flat-band ferromagnetism takes place in carefully prepared models in which the lowest bands tin the single-electron spectral are "flat." Usually, these two approaches are regarded as two complimentary routes to ferromagnetism in the Hubbard model. In the present paper we describe Nagaoka's ferromagnetism and flat-band ferromagnetism in detail, giving all the necessary background as well as complete (but elementary) mathematical proofs. By studying an intermediate model called the long-range hopping model, we also demonstrate that there is indeed a deep relation between these two seemingly different approaches to ferromagnetism. We further discuss some attempts to go beyond these approaches. We briefly discuss recent rigorous example of ferromagnetism in the Hubbard model which has neither infinitely large parameters nor completely flat bands. We give preliminary discussion regarding possible experimental realizations of the (nearly-)flat-band ferromagnetism. Finally, we focus on some theoretical attempts to understand metallic ferromagnetism. We discuss three artificial one-dimensional models in which the existence of metallic ferromagnetism can be easily proved. We have tried to make the present paper as self-contained as possible, keeping in mind readers who are new to the field. Although the present paper is written as a review, it contains some material which appears for the first time.