Condensed Matter

The statistics and form of avalanches in a driven system reveal the nature of the underlying energy landscape and dynamics. In conventional metallic ferromagnets, eddy-current back action can dominate the dynamics. Here, we study Barkhausen noise in Li(Ho,Y)F4, an insulating Ising ferromagnet that cannot sustain eddy currents. For large avalanches at temperatures approaching the Curie point, we find a symmetric response free of drag effects. In the low temperature limit, drag effects contribute to the dynamics, which we link to enhanced pinning from local random fields that are enabled by the microscopic dipole-coupled Hamiltonian (the Ising model in transverse field).

An unexpected finding two decades ago demonstrated that Shockley electron states in noble metal surfaces are spin-polarized, forming a circulating spin texture in reciprocal space. The fundamental role played by the spin degree of freedom was then revealed, even for a non-magnetic system, whenever the spin-orbit coupling was present with some strength. Here we demonstrate that similarly to electrons in the presence of spin-orbit coupling, the propagating vibrational modes are also accompanied by a well-defined magnetic oscillation even in non-magnetic materials. Although this effect is illustrated by considering a single layer of the WSe2 dichalogenide, the phenomenon is completely general and valid for any non-magnetic material with spin-orbit coupling. The emerging phonon-induced magnetic oscillation acts as an additional effective flipping mechanism for the electron spin and its implications in the transport and scattering properties of the material are evident and profound.

The topological nature of magnetic-vortex state gives rise to peculiar magnetization reversal observed in magnetic microdisks. Interestingly, magnetostatic and exchange energies which drive this reversal can be effectively controlled in artificial ferrimagnet heterostructures composed of rare-earth and transition metals. 25x[Py(t)/Gd(t)] (t=1 or 2 nm) superlattices demonstrate a pronounced change of the magnetization and exchange stiffness in a 10-300 K temperature range as well as very small magnetic anisotropy. Due to these properties, the magnetization of cylindrical microdisks composed of these artificial ferrimagnets can be transformed from the vortex to uniformly-magnetized states in a permanent magnetic field by changing the temperature. We explored the behavior of magnetization in 1.5-micrometer 25x[Py(t)/Gd(t)] (t=1 or 2 nm) disks at different temperatures and magnetic fields and observed that due to the energy barrier separating vortex and uniformly-magnetized states, the vortex nucleation and annihilation occur at different temperatures. This causes the temperature dependences of the Py/Gd disks magnetization to demonstrate unique hysteretic behavior in a narrow temperature range. It was discovered that for the 25x[Py(2 nm)/Gd(2 nm)] microdisks the vortex can be metastable at a certain temperature range.

We provide experimental details of the first experiment made in zero temperature limit ( ∼ 600\, μ K) studying the magnonic black/white hole horizon analogue using absolutely pure physical system based on the spin superfluidity in superfluid 3 He-B. We show that spin precession waves propagating on the background of the spin super-currents in a channel between two Bose-Einstein condensates of magnons in form of homogeneously precessing domains mimic the properties of the black/white horizon. Once the white hole horizon is formed and blocks the propagation of the spin-precession waves between two domains, we observed an amplification effect, i.e. when the energy of the spin precession waves reflected from the horizon is higher than the energy of the excited spin precession waves before horizon was formed. Moreover, the estimated temperature of the spontaneous Hawking radiation in this model system is about four orders of magnitude lower than the system's background temperature what makes it a promising tool to study the effect of spontaneous Hawking radiation.

We report on theoretical model and experimental results of the experiment made in a limit of absolute zero temperature ( ∼ 600\, μ K) studying the spin wave analogue of black/white hole horizon using spin (magnonic) superfluidity in superfluid 3 He-B. As an experimental tool simulating the properties of the black/white horizon we used the spin-precession waves propagating on the background of the spin super-currents between two Bose-Einstein condensates of magnons in form of homogeneously precessing domains. We provide experimental evidence of the white hole formation for spin precession waves in this system, together with observation of an amplification effect. Moreover, the estimated temperature of the spontaneous Hawking radiation in this system is about four orders of magnitude lower than the system's background temperature what makes it a promising tool to study the effect of spontaneous Hawking radiation.

Atomic fingerprints are commonly used for the characterization of local environments of atoms in machine learning and other contexts. In this work we study the behavior of the fingerprints under finite changes of atomic positions and demonstrate the existence of manifolds of quasi constant fingerprints for two widely used fingerprints, namely the smooth overlap of atomic positions (SOAP) and Behler-Parrinello atom-centered symmetry functions (ACSF). These manifolds are found numerically by following eigenvectors of the sensitivity matrix with quasi zero eigenvalues. The existence of such manifolds in ACSF and SOAP is a result of the two- and three-body nature of the fingerprint. No such manifolds can be found for the Overlap matrix (OM) many-body fingerprint.

The dynamics of a single magnetic Skyrmion in an atomic spin system under the influence of Scanning Tunneling Microscope is investigated by computer simulations solving the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. Two possible scenarios are described: manipulation with aid of a spin-polarized tunneling current and by an electric field created by the scanning tunneling microscope. The dynamics during the creation and annihilation process is studied and the possibility to move single Skyrmions is showed.

The method of many-body Green's functions is developed for arbitrary systems of electrons and nuclei starting from the full (beyond Born-Oppenheimer) Hamiltonian of Coulomb interactions and kinetic energies. The theory presented here resolves the problems arising from the translational and rotational invariance of this Hamiltonian that afflict the existing many-body Green's function theories. We derive a coupled set of exact equations for the electronic and nuclear Green's functions and provide a systematic way to approximately compute the properties of arbitrary many-body systems of electrons and nuclei beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. The case of crystalline solids is discussed in detail.

Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) is an out-of-equilibrium method for generating non-thermal spin polarization which provides large signal enhancements in modern diagnostic methods based on nuclear magnetic resonance. A particular instance is cross effect DNP, which involves the interaction of two coupled electrons with the nuclear spin ensemble. Here we develop a theory for this important DNP mechanism and show that the non-equilibrium nuclear polarization build-up is effectively driven by three-body incoherent Markovian dissipative processes involving simultaneous state changes of two electrons and one nucleus. Our theoretical approach allows for the first time simulations of the polarization dynamics on an individual spin level for ensembles consisting of hundreds of nuclear spins. The insight obtained by these simulations can be used to find optimal experimental conditions for cross effect DNP and to design tailored radical systems that provide optimal DNP efficiency.

A mathematical model is developed for the process of mass transfer from a fluid flowing through a packed column. Mass loss, whether by absorption or adsorption, may be significant. This is appropriate for example when removing contaminants from flue gases. With small mass loss the model reduces to a simpler form which is appropriate to describe the removal of contaminants/pollutants from liquids. A case study is carried out for the removal of CO2 from a gas mixture passing over activated carbon. Using the experimental parameter values it is shown, via non-dimensionalisation, that certain terms may be neglected from the governing equations, resulting in a form which may be solved analytically using a travelling wave substitution. From this all important quantities throughout the column may be described; concentration of gaseous materials, amount of material available for mass transfer, fluid velocity and pressure. Results are verified by comparison with experimental data for the breakthrough curve (the amount of carbon measured at the column outlet). The advantage of the analytical expression over a purely numerical solution is that it can easily be used to optimise the process. In the final section we demonstrate how the model may be further reduced when small amounts of contaminant are removed. The model is shown to exhibit better agreement than established models when compared to experimental data for the removal of amoxicillin and congo red dye from water.