Magnetic properties of fcc Ni-based transition metal alloys

Electronic properties and finite-temperature magnetism of Ni-based transition metal alloys with the face-centered cubic structure are studied theoretically by ab initio calculations. While the calculated total and local magnetic moments agree well with the experiment, the evaluation of the Curie temperature from first principles represents a much more delicate problem. The mean-field approximation and the random-phase approximation (RPA), as well as the renormalized RPA by Bruno that was extended to random alloys, were tested: the latter giving the most satisfactory agreement with the experiment for a broad class of Ni-based alloys of the type Ni1-xMx (M=Cu, Pd, Co, Fe, and Mn) over the whole concentration range.