Abstract :
Recent progress in the theory of magnetism and electron correlations is reviewed to clarify the theories developed in the last decade and their mutual relations. A historical development of the theory of magnetism is outlined, and the dynamical coherent potential approximation (CPA) which completely takes account of the dynamical spin and charge fluctuations within the single-site approximation is introduced. Both the dynamical effects on various magnetic properties and the many-body band structure are shown to be explained on the same footing. It is shown that the dynamical CPA is equivalent to the other single-site theories of strongly correlated electrons: the many-body CPA, the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), and the projection operator method CPA (PM-CPA). These theories are elucidated with use of a common concept of effective medium or coherent potential. The effects of orbital degeneracy and the realistic calculation scheme are discussed with an emphasis on Hundʹs rule coupling. Non-local theories of magnetism and electron correlations which go beyond the single-site approximation are presented. They include the molecular dynamics approach to the magnetic short range order, the dynamical cluster methods as a direct extension of the DMFT, and the self-consistent projection operator approach as an extension of the PM-CPA with use of the incremental cluster expansion. The current problems of their approaches and their future perspective are discussed.
