Electron Transport Driven by Nonequilibrium Magnetic Textures

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nonequilibrium magnetic textures influence electron transport, emphasizing the roles of spin dephasing and spin-flip scattering, and introduces a phenomenological approach based on Onsager reciprocity.

Contribution

It develops a phenomenological framework incorporating spin dephasing and spin-flip scattering effects in electron transport driven by magnetic textures, extending previous models.

Findings

Electric field corrections due to spin dephasing are significant.

Spin-flip scattering impacts voltages and spin accumulations.

The approach connects magnetic dynamics with transport phenomena via Onsager reciprocity.

Abstract

Spin-polarized electron transport driven by inhomogeneous magnetic dynamics is discussed in the limit of a large exchange coupling. Electron spins rigidly following the time-dependent magnetic profile experience spin-dependent fictitious electric and magnetic fields. We show that the electric field acquires important corrections due to spin dephasing, when one relaxes the spin-projection approximation. Furthermore, spin-flip scattering between the spin bands needs to be taken into account in order to calculate voltages and spin accumulations induced by the magnetic dynamics. A phenomenological approach based on the Onsager reciprocity principle is developed, which allows us to capture the effect of spin dephasing and make a connection to the well studied problem of current-driven magnetic dynamics. A number of results that recently appeared in the literature are related and generalized.