Rutile RuO2 has attracted great interest recently, as its magnetic ground state remains controversial. Experimental studies have reported either nonmagnetic or altermagnetic (AM) ground states in different crystalline samples of RuO2, highlighting the need for a reasonable explanation to resolve this contradiction. In this study, density functional theory calculations are performed to reveal the correlation-sensitive and strain-dependent magnetism of bulk RuO2. On one hand, multiple AM phases with different magnitudes of the spin magnetic moment are identified in the Hubbard parameter space for RuO2. On the other hand, when appropriate strains which significantly change the crystal cell volume are applied, the ground state of RuO2 can undergo transitions between the nonmagnetic state with no spin splitting and the magnetic states with spin splitting in the band structure. These findings not only demonstrate intriguing physics in 4d-electron-correlated RuO2, but also retain its potential for spintronic applications.
@article{arxiv.2604.14764,
title = {Nonmagnetic-magnetic Transitions in Rutile RuO2},
author = {Yue-Fei Hou and Jiajun Lu and Xinfeng Chen and Gui-Bin Liu and Ping Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.14764},
year = {2026}
}