Single-ion versus exchange anisotropy in calculating anisotropic susceptibilities of thin ferromagnetic Heisenberg films within many-body Green's function theory

TL;DR

This paper compares the effects of single-ion and exchange anisotropies on the susceptibilities of ferromagnetic Heisenberg films using many-body Green's function theory, finding no significant differences between the two.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of single-ion and exchange anisotropies in thin ferromagnetic films within a many-body Green's function framework, highlighting their similar effects.

Findings

No significant differences in susceptibilities between anisotropy types

Easy and hard axis magnetizations are similar for both anisotropies

Experimental distinction between anisotropy types is not feasible

Abstract

We compare transverse and parallel static susceptibilities of in-plane uniaxial anisotropic ferromagnetic Heisenberg films calculated in the framework of many-body Green's function theory using single-ion anisotropies with the previously investigated case of exchange anisotropies. On the basis of the calculated observables (easy and hard axes magnetizations and susceptibilities) no significant differences are found, i. e. it is not possible to propose an experiment that might decide which kind of anisotropy is acting in an actual ferromagnetic film.