The half-filled Hubbard model on the Bethe lattice with coordination number
z = 3 is studied using the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) met
hod. Ground-state properties such as the energy per site E, average local m
agnetization ((S) over cap(z)(i)), its fluctuations ((S) over cap(z)(i)(2))
- (S) over cap(z)(i))(2) and various spin correlation functions ((S) over
cap(z)(i)(S) over cap(z)(j)) - (S-z(i)) (S-z(j)) are determined as a functi
on of the Coulomb interaction strength U/t. The local magnetic moments (S,(
i)) increase monotonically with increasing Coulomb repulsion Tilt showing a
ntiferromagnetic order between nearest neighbors [((S) over cap(z)(0)) simi
lar or equal to - ((S) over cap(z)(1))]. At large U/t, ((S) over cap(z)(i))
is strongly reduced with respect to the saturation value 1/2 due to exchan
ge fluctuations between nearest neighbors (NN) spins [\(S-z(i))\ similar or
equal to 0.35 for U/t --> +infinity]. (S-z(i)(2)) - (S-z(i))(2) shows a ma
ximum for U/t = 2.4-2.9 that results from the interplay between the usual i
ncrease of (S-z(i)(2)) with increasing U/t and the formation of important p
ermanent:moments (S-z(i)) at large U/t. While NN sites show antiferrornagne
tic spin correlations that increase with increasing Coulomb repulsion, the
next NN sites are very weakly correlated over the whole range of U/t. The D
MRG results are discussed and compared with tight-binding calculations for
U = 0, independent DMRG studies for the Heisenberg model and simple first-o
rder perturbation estimates.