Magnetism of finite graphene samples: Mean-field theory compared with exact diagonalization and quantum Monte Carlo simulations

The magnetic properties of graphene on finite geometries are studied using a self-consistent mean-field theory of the Hubbard model. This approach is known to predict ferromagnetic edge states close to the zigzag edges in single-layer graphene quantum dots and nanoribbons. In order to assess the accuracy of this method, we perform complementary exact diagonalization and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We observe good quantitative agreement for all quantities investigated provided that the Coulomb interaction is not too strong.