A ‘magnetic’ interatomic potential for molecular dynamics simulations

We develop a semi-empirical many-body interatomic potential suitable for large scale molecular dynamics simulations of magnetic α-iron. The functional form of the embedding part of the potential is derived using a combination of the Stoner and the Ginzburg–Landau models. We show that it is the symmetry broken solutions of the Ginzburg–Landau model describing spontaneous magnetization of atoms that provide the link between magnetism and interatomic forces. We discuss a range of potential applications of the new method.