Magnetic and charge structures in itinerant-electron magnets: Coexistence of multiple SDW and CDW

Abstract

A theory of Kondo lattices is applied to studying possible magnetic and charge structures of itinerant-electron antiferromagnets. Even helical spin structures can be stabilized when the nesting of the Fermi surface is not sharp and the superexchange interaction, which arises from the virtual exchange of pair excitations across the Mott-Hubbard gap, is mainly responsible for magnetic instability. Sinusoidal spin structures or spin density waves (SDW) are only stabilized when the nesting of the Fermi surface is sharp enough and a novel exchange interaction arising from that of pair excitations of quasi-particles is mainly responsible for magnetic instability. In particular, multiple SDW are stabilized when their incommensurate ordering wave-numbers $\pm{\bf Q}$ are multiple; magnetizations of different $\pm{\bf Q}$ components are orthogonal to each other in double and triple SDW when magnetic anisotropy is weak enough. Unless $\pm 2{\bf Q}$ are commensurate, charge density waves (CDW) with $\pm 2{\bf Q}$ coexist with SDW with $\pm{\bf Q}$. Because the quenching of magnetic moments by the Kondo effect depends on local numbers of electrons, the phase of CDW or electron densities is such that magnetic moments are large where the quenching is weak. It is proposed that the so called stipe order in cuprate-oxide high-temperature superconductors must be the coexisting state of double incommensurate SDW and CDW.