Superparamagnetic Relaxation Driven by Colored Noise

Abstract: A theoretical investigation of magnetic relaxation processes in single domain particles driven by colored noise is presented. Two approaches are considered; the Landau-Lifshitz-Miyazaki-Seki equation, which is a Langevin dynamics model based on the introduction of an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck correlated noise into the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation and a Generalized Master Equation approach whereby the ordinary Master Equation is modified through the introduction of an explicit memory kernel. It is found that colored noise is likely to become important for high anisotropy materials where the characteristic system time, in this case the inverse Larmor precession frequency, becomes comparable to the correlation time. When the escape time is much longer than the correlation time, the relaxation profile of the spin has a similar exponential form to the ordinary LLG equation, while for low barrier heights and intermediate damping, for which the correlation time is a sizable fraction of the escape time, an unusual bi-exponential decay is predicted as a characteristic of colored noise. At very high damping and correlation times, the time profile of the spins exhibits a more complicated, noisy trajectory.