Orbital magnetization and magnetic susceptibility of interacting electrons
Abstract
We present a rigorous derivation of the orbital magnetization for interacting electrons within the self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation. Our method also allows us to derive formulas for the orbital magnetic susceptibility. The results are expressed entirely in terms of the self-consistent wavefunctions and the Hartree-Fock energy spectrum at zero magnetic field. We find that the formula for the orbital magnetization is the same as in the non-interacting case, provided that the Hamiltonian and Bloch wave functions are replaced by their Hartree-Fock counterparts. By contrast, the orbital magnetic susceptibility contains an additional interaction-induced contribution that cannot be obtained by such a replacement. We test the formulas on an interacting Rashba model, finding an agreement with calculations performed at a small but non-zero external magnetic field.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.20626,
title = {Orbital magnetization and magnetic susceptibility of interacting electrons},
author = {Jian Kang and Minxuan Wang and Oskar Vafek},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.20626},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
5-page main text, 2 figures, and 2.5-page appendix. Additional results are included, particularly on magnetic susceptibility, and comparison with interacting Rashba model at finite B