No abstract

The usual Faraday's Law E=-dPhi/dt determines an electromotive force E which accounts only for forces resulting from the charge of electrons. In ferromagnetic materials, in general, there exist nonconservative spin forces which also contribute to E. These might be included in Faraday's Law if the magnetic flux Phi is replaced by [Planck's constant/(-e)]gamma, where gamma is a Berry phase suitably averaged over the electron spin direction. These contributions to E represent the requirements of energy conservation in itinerant ferromagnets with time dependent order parameters.

The coupling between a current and a domain wall is examined. In the presence of a finite current and in the absence of a potential which breaks the translational symmetry, there is a perfect transfer of angular momentum from the conduction electrons to the wall. As a result, the ground state is in uniform motion and this remains the case even when relaxation is included. This is described by, appropriately modified, Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equations. The results for a simple pinning model are compared with experiment.