Current-induced torques in textured Rashba ferromagnets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how current-induced torques in ferromagnetic metals with Rashba spin-orbit coupling are influenced by magnetization textures, combining symmetry analysis and Boltzmann calculations to understand their impact on domain wall mobility.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive symmetry-based construction and a Boltzmann-based calculation of current-induced torques in textured Rashba ferromagnets, highlighting their effect on domain wall dynamics.

Findings

Torques depend on magnetization gradients and electric field symmetry.

Spin-orbit coupling and inhomogeneity interplay significantly affects domain-wall mobility.

Theoretical framework combines phenomenology and Boltzmann approach.

Abstract

In systems with small spin-orbit coupling, current-induced torques on the magnetization require inhomogeneous magnetization textures. For large spin-orbit coupling, such torques exist even without gradients in the magnetization direction. Here, we consider current-induced torques in ferromagnetic metals with both Rashba spin-orbit coupling and inhomogeneous magnetization. We first phenomenologically construct all torques that are allowed by the symmetries of the system, to first order in magnetization-direction gradients and electric field. Second, we use a Boltzmann approach to calculate the spin torques that arise to second order in the spin-orbit coupling. We apply our results to current-driven domain walls and find that the domain-wall mobility is strongly affected by torques that result from the interplay between spin-orbit coupling and inhomogeneity of the magnetization texture.