RuO2 has been regarded as a prototypical candidate for metallic altermagnet, offering a potential platform for high-speed and high-efficiency spintronics. However, the magnetic ground state of RuO2 remains a topic of active debate due to conflicting experimental reports. In this work, we investigate the effect of electron correlations in RuO2 using density functional theory combined with dynamical mean-field theory (DFT+DMFT). In contrast to previous DFT-based studies, DFT+DMFT captures essential dynamical correlation effects, yielding spectral functions and optical conductivities in excellent quantitative agreement with experiments, and further reveals that RuO2 resides in the close vicinity of both the paramagnetic-altermagnetic phase boundary and the itinerant-localized crossover, rendering the magnetic ground state highly susceptible to external perturbations. Indeed, even a minimal compressive strain of ∼0.5% is sufficient to drive the system into an altermagnetic phase. These findings elucidate the origin of the conflicting experimental observations and reveal that dynamical correlation effects are the key driving force behind the highly tunable magnetic ground state of RuO2.
@article{arxiv.2605.13559,
title = {Correlation-driven tunability of altermagnetism in RuO$_2$},
author = {Ina Park and Dongwook Kim and Jisook Hong and Beomjoon Goh and Bo Gyu Jang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.13559},
year = {2026}
}