1204.3954 (L. V. Pourovskii et al.)

Electronic properties and magnetism of iron at the Earth's inner core
conditions    [PDF]

L. V. Pourovskii, T. Miyake, S. I. Simak, A. V. Ruban, L. Dubrovinsky, I. A. Abrikosov

We employ state-of-the-art ab initio simulations within the dynamical mean-field theory to study three likely phases of iron (hexagonal close-packed, hcp, face centered cubic, fcc, and body centered cubic, bcc) at the Earth's core conditions. A non-Fermi liquid behaviour is observed for bcc Fe, and the correction to the electronic free energy due to correlations depends strongly on crystal structure. We predict that all three structures have sufficiently high magnetic susceptibility to stabilize the geodynamo. The strongest effect is observed in bcc Fe, where a large local magnetic moment of 2.6 Bohr magnetons still survives at 5800 K and 300 GPa.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.3954