Neutron Scattering from Itinerant-Electron Ferromagnets

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Abstract
An improved formalism is proposed for calculating the cross section for the magnetic scattering of neutrons by itinerant ferromagnets. This procedure is based on a simple extension of the random-phase approximation of the relevant Green's-function equation and an interpolation formalism for treating wave functions and matrix elements. In contrast to previous work, this formalism incorporates momentum-dependent splitting of the electronic energy bands as proposed by Hodges, Ehrenreich, and Lang as well as multiband effects. The scattering cross section is found to depend only on parameters which are determined directly from a self-consistent treatment of the ferromagnetic-band-structure calculation. The results obtained from this formalism were found to be too complicated to treat analytically for realistic band-structure models, and therefore meaningful numerical results must be obtained from computer calculations.