Role of vertex corrections in the spin-fluctuation mediated pairing mechanism

We study numerically and partly diagrammatically the renormalization of the electron-spin interaction or vertex in a two-dimensional one-band Hubbard model with spin-fluctuation momentum transfer ${\vv q}=(\pi,\pi)$. We find that the renormalized electron-spin vertex decreases quite generally with decreasing temperature at all doping densities. As a combination of two concurring effects, i.e. the decrease of the vertex and the increase of the spin susceptibility, the effective pairing interaction increases with lowering temperature in the intermediate-correlation regime, but {\it flattens off} in the strong-correlation regime. Our findings indicate that in the high-T$_c$ cuprates the pairing mediated by antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations is substantially reduced due to vertex corrections.