Mechanics of a ferromagnetic domain wall

Abstract

This paper gives a pedagogical introduction to the mechanics of ferromagnetic solitons. We start with the dynamics of a single spin and develop all the tools required for the description of the dynamics of solitons in a ferromagnet.

Special Issue on Solitons in Quantum Physics

“…This special issue devoted to solitons in condensed matter gives a good illustration of the common sets of principles and issues that span seemingly disparate branches of condensed matter physics. At first glance, it is the diversity that is most apparent attested by the fairly even distribution in the special issue of the systems that host solitons: magnets [1][2][3][4], neutral superfluids [5][6][7], superconductors [8,9], and quantum Hall states [10]. However, it should be readily apparent to interested readers that they may well be more conveniently grouped not by the types of soliton hosts but rather by the types of soliton behavior studied.…”

“…Indeed the simplest grouping would divide most of articles into just two groups independent of the underlying microscopic physics-one on soliton dynamics [1,2,7,9] and the other on solitons at equilibrium [3,5,6,10]. With respect to the former, while it is amusing to find that there still exists an interesting new angle of approach to the half-a-century-old topic of the dynamics of ferromagnetic solitons as discussed in [1], it is possible to discern strong current interest in the effect of excitation bound to solitons.…”

“…With respect to the former, while it is amusing to find that there still exists an interesting new angle of approach to the half-a-century-old topic of the dynamics of ferromagnetic solitons as discussed in [1], it is possible to discern strong current interest in the effect of excitation bound to solitons. Clearly both the discussion of the effective inertia of a ferromagnetic domain wall in [2] and the discussion on the superconducting vortex entropy in [9] focus on the effect of bound excitation. But the increasing distortion of the solitons nearing the dynamic instability as discussed in [7] can also be viewed as arising from the softening of the bound excitation.…”