Effects of electron correlations on transport properties of iron at Earth's core conditions

Abstract

Earth's magnetic field has been thought to arise from thermal convection of molten iron alloy in the outer core, but recent density functional theory calculations have suggested that the conductivity of iron is too high to support thermal convection, resulting in the investigation of chemically driven convection. These calculations for resistivity were based on electron-phonon scattering. Here we apply self-consistent density functional theory plus dynamical mean-field theory (DFT + DMFT) to iron and find that at high temperatures electron-electron scattering is comparable to the electron-phonon scattering, bringing theory into agreement with experiments and solving the transport problem in Earth's core. The conventional thermal dynamo picture is safe. We find that electron-electron scattering of d electrons is important at high temperatures in transition metals, in contrast to textbook analyses since Mott, and that 4s electron contributions to transport are negligible, in contrast to numerous models used for over fifty years. The DFT+DMFT method should be applicable to other high-temperature systems where electron correlations are important.