Magnetic detonation structure in crystals of molecular magnets

TL;DR

This paper investigates the detailed structure of magnetic detonation in molecular magnet crystals, emphasizing the roles of thermal conduction and viscosity in shaping smooth thermodynamic profiles across the detonation front.

Contribution

It introduces a model that incorporates transport processes, revealing smooth thermodynamic profiles and the conditions leading to isothermal discontinuities in magnetic detonation.

Findings

Transport processes produce smooth temperature, density, and pressure profiles.

Thermal conduction can cause an isothermal discontinuity instead of a shock.

Volume viscosity influences the sharpness of the detonation front.

Abstract

Experimentally detected ultrafast spin-avalanches spreading in crystals of molecular (nano)magnets (Decelle et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 027203 (2009)), have been recently explained in terms of magnetic detonation (Modestov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 207208 (2011)). Here magnetic detonation structure is investigated by taking into account transport processes of the crystals such as thermal conduction and volume viscosity. In contrast to the previously suggested model, the transport processes result in smooth profiles of the most important thermodynamical crystal parameters - such as temperature, density and pressure - all over the magnetic detonation front including the leading shock, which is one of the key regions of magnetic detonation. In the case of zero volume viscosity, thermal conduction leads to an isothermal discontinuity instead of the shock, for which temperature is continuous while density and pressure experience jump.