Equilibrium states of planar arrays of magnetic dipoles with allowance for exchange interaction

Abstract

Equilibrium states of planar square arrays of magnetic dipoles have been studied. It has been shown that, in the presence of exchange interaction, the main equilibrium states are configurations with the orientation of dipoles along the diagonal of the system, along its side, and vortex configurations with different location of the center of the vortex and different magnitudes of the magnetic moment of the system. Condi tions for transitions between equilibrium configurations caused by the planar field that acts on the entire array and by the local normal field acting on part of dipoles entering into the system have been considered. The possibility of transitions between the configurations has been shown and the changes in the total magnetic moment due to the action of the field on separate dipoles of the system has been discussed.