Ferromagnetism in the one-band Hubbard model

We consider the question of ferromagnetism in the one-band Hubbard model on the square lattice with infinite on-site repulsion using exact diagonalization techniques. Our results show a nonmonotonic behavior as a function of the number of holes Nₕ away from half filling. We find that the spin per electron is generally finite but less than its maximum value and, for a fixed hole number, increases with increasing system size. We interpret this as indicating that the inifinite-U Hubbard model is ferromagnetic in the thermodynamic limit for a finite fraction of holes, but that there are nonferromagnetic states which are very close in energy.