The origin of increase of damping in transition metals with rare earth impurities

TL;DR

This paper investigates how rare earth impurities increase damping in transition metals, attributing it mainly to orbital moment coupling and emphasizing the need for an itinerant model to explain the observed effects.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of damping mechanisms involving rare earth impurities and highlights the importance of an itinerant electron picture for accurate modeling.

Findings

Damping increase is mainly due to coupling of orbital moments and conduction electrons.

An itinerant model is necessary to reproduce the damping dependence on rare earth angular momentum.

The study clarifies the microscopic origin of damping enhancement in impurity-doped transition metals.

Abstract

The damping due to rare earth impurities in transition metals is discussed in the low concentration limit. It is shown that the increase in damping is mainly due to the coupling of the orbital moments of the rare earth impurities and the conduction $p$-electrons. It is shown that an itinerant picture for the host transition ions is needed to reproduce the observed dependence of the damping on the total angular moment of the rare earths.