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A ribbon is a surface swept out by a line segment turning as it moves along a central curve. For narrow magnetic ribbons, for which the length of the line segment is much less than the length of the curve, the anisotropy induced by the magnetostatic interaction is biaxial, with hard axis normal to the ribbon and easy axis along the central curve. The micromagnetic energy of a narrow ribbon reduces to that of a one-dimensional ferromagnetic wire, but with curvature, torsion and local anisotropy modified by the rate of turning. These general results are applied to two examples, namely a helicoid ribbon, for which the central curve is a straight line, and a M\"obius ribbon, for which the central curve is a circle about which the line segment executes a $180^\circ$ twist. In both examples, for large positive tangential anisotropy, the ground state magnetization lies tangent to the central curve. As the tangential anisotropy is decreased, the ground state magnetization undergoes a transition, acquiring an in-surface component perpendicular to the central curve. For the helicoid ribbon, the transition occurs at vanishing anisotropy, below which the ground state is uniformly perpendicular to the central curve. The transition for the M\"obius ribbon is more subtle; it occurs at a positive critical value of the anisotropy, below which the ground state is nonuniform. For the helicoid ribbon, the dispersion law for spin wave excitations about the tangential state is found to exhibit an asymmetry determined by the geometric and magnetic chiralities., Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 2 figures

We study the dynamics of a domain wall under the influence of applied magnetic fields in a one-dimensional ferromagnetic nanowire, governed by the Landau--Lifshitz--Gilbert equation. Existence of travelling-wave solutions close to two known static solutions is proven using implicit-function-theorem-type arguments., Comment: 12 pages

We present an analytic study of domain-wall statics and dynamics in ferromagnetic nanotubes with spin-orbit-induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). Even at the level of statics, dramatic effects arise from the interplay of space curvature and DMI: the domains become chirally twisted leading to more compact domain walls. The dynamics of these chiral structures exhibits several interesting features. Under weak applied currents, they propagate without distortion. The dynamical response is further enriched by the application of an external magnetic field: the domain wall velocity becomes chirality-dependent and can be significantly increased by varying the DMI. These characteristics allow for enhanced control of domain wall motion in nanotubes with DMI, increasing their potential as information carriers in future logic and storage devices., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures

Under a magnetic field along its axis, domain wall motion in a uniaxial nanowire is much slower than in the fully anisotropic case, typically by several orders of magnitude (the square of the dimensionless Gilbert damping parameter). However, with the addition of a magnetic field transverse to the wire, this behaviour is dramatically reversed; up to a critical field strength, analogous to the Walker breakdown field, domain walls in a uniaxial wire propagate faster than in a fully anisotropic wire (without transverse field). Beyond this critical field strength, precessional motion sets in, and the mean velocity decreases. Our results are based on leading-order analytic calculations of the velocity and critical field as well as numerical solutions of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Quantum eigenstates undergoing cyclic changes acquire a phase factor of geometric origin. This phase, known as the Berry phase, or the geometric phase, has found applications in a wide range of disciplines throughout physics, including atomic and molecular physics, condensed matter physics, optics, and classical dynamics. In this article, the basic theory of the geometric phase is presented along with a number of representative applications. The article begins with an account of the geometric phase for cyclic adiabatic evolutions. An elementary derivation is given along with a worked example for two-state systems. The implications of time-reversal are explained, as is the fundamental connection between the geometric phase and energy level degeneracies. We also discuss methods of experimental observation. A brief account is given of geometric magnetism; this is a Lorenz-like force of geometric origin which appears in the dynamics of slow systems coupled to fast ones. A number of theoretical developments of the geometric phase are presented. These include an informal discussion of fibre bundles, and generalizations of the geometric phase to degenerate eigenstates (the nonabelian case) and to nonadiabatic evolution. There follows an account of applications. Manifestations in classical physics include the Hannay angle and kinematic geometric phases. Applications in optics concern polarization dynamics, including the theory and observation of Pancharatnam's phase. Applications in molecular physics include the molecular Aharonov-Bohm effect and nuclear magnetic resonance studies. In condensed matter physics, we discuss the role of the geometric phase in the theory of the quantum Hall effect., Comment: Manuscript of an article published in the Encyclopedia of Applied Physics in 1997, 59 pages

Let O be a closed geodesic polygon in S^2. Maps from O into S^2 are said to satisfy tangent boundary conditions if the edges of O are mapped into the geodesics which contain them. Taking O to be an octant of S^2, we compute the infimum Dirichlet energy, Ecal(H), for continuous maps satisfying tangent boundary conditions of arbitrary homotopy type H. The expression for Ecal(H) involves a topological invariant - the spelling length - associated with the (nonabelian) fundamental group of the n-times punctured two-sphere, pi_1(S^2 - {s_1,..., s_n},*). The lower bound for Ecal(H) is obtained from combinatorial group theory arguments, while the upper bound is obtained by constructing explicit representatives which, on all but an arbitrarily small subset of O, are alternatively locally conformal or anticonformal. For conformal and anticonformal classes (classes containing wholly conformal and anticonformal representatives respectively), the expression for Ecal(H) reduces to a previous result involving the degrees of a set of regular values s_1,..., s_n in the target S^2 space. These degrees may be viewed as invariants associated with the abelianization of \pi_1(S^2 - {s_1,..., s_n}, *). For nonconformal classes, however, Ecal(H) may be strictly greater than the abelian bound. This stems from the fact that, for nonconformal maps, the number of preimages of certain regular values may necessarily be strictly greater than the absolute value of their degrees. This work is motivated by the theoretical modelling of nematic liquid crystals in confined polyhedral geometries. The results imply new lower and upper bounds for the Dirichlet energy (one-constant Oseen-Frank energy) of reflection-symmetric tangent unit-vector fields in a rectangular prism., Comment: 47 pages, 2 figures

We study nematic liquid crystal configurations in a prototype bistable device - the Post Aligned Bistable Nematic (PABN) cell. Working within the Oseen-Frank continuum model, we describe the liquid crystal configuration by a unit-vector field, in a model version of the PABN cell. Firstly, we identify four distinct topologies in this geometry. We explicitly construct trial configurations with these topologies which are used as initial conditions for a numerical solver, based on the finite-element method. The morphologies and energetics of the corresponding numerical solutions qualitatively agree with experimental observations and suggest a topological mechanism for bistability in the PABN cell geometry.

Nematic liquid crystals in a polyhedral domain, a prototype for bistable displays, may be described by a unit-vector field subject to tangent boundary conditions. Here we consider the case of a rectangular prism. For configurations with reflection-symmetric topologies, we derive a new lower bound for the one-constant elastic energy. For certain topologies, called conformal and anticonformal, the lower bound agrees with a previous result. For the remaining topologies, called nonconformal, the new bound is an improvement. For nonconformal topologies we derive an upper bound, which differs from the lower bound by a factor depending only on the aspect ratios of the prism., Comment: 21 pages

We derive a lower bound for energies of harmonic maps of convex polyhedra in $ \R^3 $ to the unit sphere $S^2,$ with tangent boundary conditions on the faces. We also establish that $C^\infty$ maps, satisfying tangent boundary conditions, are dense with respect to the Sobolev norm, in the space of continuous tangent maps of finite energy., Comment: Acknowledgment added, typos removed, minor corrections

A treatment of the spin-statistics relation in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics due to Berry and Robbins [Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A (1997) 453, 1771-1790] is generalised within a group-theoretical framework. The construction of Berry and Robbins is re-formulated in terms of certain locally flat vector bundles over n-particle configuration space. It is shown how families of such bundles can be constructed from irreducible representations of the group SU(2n). The construction of Berry and Robbins, which leads to a definite connection between spin and statistics (the physically correct connection), is shown to correspond to the completely symmetric representations. The spin-statistics connection is typically broken for general SU(2n) representations, which may admit, for a given value of spin, both bose and fermi statistics, as well as parastatistics. The determination of the allowed values of the spin and statistics reduces to the decomposition of certain zero-weight representations of a (generalised) Weyl group of SU(2n). A formula for this decomposition is obtained using the Littlewood-Richardson theorem for the decomposition of representations of U(m+n) into representations of U(m)*U(n)., Comment: 32 pages, added example section 4.3

We calculate the force and impulse operators for a charged particle in the field of an Aharonov-Bohm flux line. The force operator is formally the Lorentz force, with the magnetic field operator modified to include quantum corrections due to anomolous commutation relations. Expectation values for stationary states are calculated. Nonstationary states are treated by integrating the force operator in time to obtain the impulse operator. Expectation values of the impulse are calculated for slow wavepackets (which spread faster than they move) and for fast wavepackets (which spread only negligibly before their closest approach to the flux line). We give two derivations of the force and impulse operators, the first a simple derivation based on formal arguments, and the second a rigorous calculation of wavepacket expectation values. We also show that the same expressions for the force and impulse are obtained if the flux line is enclosed in an impenetrable cylinder,or distributed uniformly over a flux cylinder, in the limit that the radius of the cylinder goes to zero., Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure