Stoner-Wohlfarth switching of the condensate magnetization in a dipolar spinor gas and the metrology of excitation damping

Abstract

We consider quasi-one-dimensional dipolar spinor Bose-Einstein condensates in the homogeneous-local-spin-orientation approximation, that is with unidirectional local magnetization. By analytically calculating the exact effective dipole-dipole interaction, we derive a Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation for the dissipative condensate magnetization dynamics, and show how it leads to the Stoner-Wohlfarth model of a uni-axial ferro-magnetic particle, where the latter model determines the stable magnetization patterns and hysteresis curves for switching between them. For an external magnetic field pointing along the axial, long direction, we analytically solve the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. The solution explicitly demonstrates that the magnetic dipole-dipole interaction {\it accelerates} the dissipative dynamics of the magnetic moment distribution and the associated dephasing of the magnetic moment direction. Under suitable conditions, dephasing of the magnetization direction due to dipole-dipole interactions occurs within time scales up to two orders of magnitude smaller than the lifetime of currently experimentally realized dipolar spinor condensates, e.g., produced with the large magnetic-dipole-moment atoms ${}^{166} \textrm{Er}$. This enables experimental access to the dissipation parameter $\Gamma$ in the Gross-Pitaevski\v\i~mean-field equation, for a system currently lacking a complete quantum kinetic treatment of dissipative processes and, in particular, an experimental check of the commonly used assumption that $\Gamma$ is a single scalar independent of spin indices.