Quantum magnetism, spin waves, and optical cavities (Q1730947)

This SpringerBrief (hereafter referred to as the Book) is based on the notes that the author made for a one semester course which included the topics in the title and in addition a chapter on magneto-optical Effects and a chapter on cavity optomechanics. The course was meant for advanced undergraduates and students studying for a Master's degree. On the basis of the material in the text the reader will need a good grasp of electromagnetism, quantum mechanics and solid state physics as well as being able to follow the process of modelling, the application of models including their limitations. In accordance with its origins, the text is both terse and covers a wide area of the origins and complexity of magnetism. Evidently the author has had to face the problem of choice of material in order to fit these topics into a Springer ``brief''. My opinion is that this has been done successfully (with one exception) and that the treatment has been well thought out. Chapter 1, Electromagnetism: The setting is primarily in a classical magnetostatic setting. Much of this is standard in reliable books on electromagnetism and the reader will assume to have met the topics discussed, but probably not as presented here. The concepts and results in this chapter include magnetic fields, magnetic moments, the laws of Biot-Savart, Ampere and Maxwell's equations. Also considered is the angular momentum due to charged particles moving in orbits. This being a classical system the stability of orbits is invoked from the Bohr atom. Spin angular momentum is also borrowed. An extension to a purely quantal treatment is promised for the next chapter. External fields are considered as are the definitions of dia-, para-, ferro-, and ferri-magnetism. A connection to hysterisis is described as is the magnetostatic boundary conditions for Maxwell's equations; the chapter ends with a discussion of demagnetizing fields and the concepts of magnetic charge and fictitous magnetic poles that these suggest. Chapter 2, Atomic Origins of Magnetism: The first section is entitled the ``basics of quantum mechanics''. Although the use of quantum mechanics in the rest of the book is comfortably at the level of mathematics which is standard in physics, some remarks at the beginning of this chapter are technically incorrect. This comes about because the author adopts Dirac's definition of observable, which may be found in his book. His definition, however, is not sustainable as it stands, see infra. The author is in very good company as almost all theoretical physicist do the same. While nothing goes awry in the Book, some remarks about what the mathematically rigorous case is would, in my opinion, be worthwhile. It was von Neumann who enunciated the mathematically correct definition of an observable: a self adjoint operator. This is a necessary condition for the momentum, Hamiltonian, orbital angular momentum (amongst other operators) to generate the unitary symmetry groups of space translations, time translations and spatial rotations respectively. Dirac also requires that an observable must have a spectrum consisting only of eigenvalues and a corresponding orthonormal eigenbasis. Otherwise, Dirac says, the operator will not be physically observable. But in the Schrödinger representation (which is being used), the position and momentum operators have no eigenvalues at all; they have an absolutely continuous spectrum, and this is connected to such physical phenomena as scattering ionization and tunneling. These states are not square integrable but can be accomodated by the rigged Hilbert space formalism, which was suggested to J. E. Roberts by Dirac who suggested this topic as a thesis problem ``because it is time to do so''. I will say no more about rigor in this review The chapter continues with a discussion of the orbital and spin angular momentum operators, and their (Lie algebra) commutation relations. Analysis of the hydrogen atom follows in the next section. Only the bound states and their spectra are considered. Applications to the Zeeman effect, magnetic moment, Bohr magneton and the splitting of the degeneracy due to an external magnetic field are noted. The calculus of the orbital and spin angular momentum is discussed, including spin-orbit interaction. Here we find the Clebsch-Gordon coefficients, the Wigner-Eckart theorem, the revised Landé factor and the anomalous Zeeman effect. The last section of this chapter considers many electron systems, discussing the Hartree Fock approximation, Russell-Sanders coupling, Hund's rules, closed shells, jj coupling and diamagnetism. Chapter 3, Magnetism in Solids: The first model considered is the paramagnetic response of a finite number of identical non-interacting magnetic moments. This is analyzed in detail, leading to the Curie-Weiss law with its molecular fields, spontaneous magnetization and a phase transition to a magnetically ordered phase. The section ends by anticipating that magnetic ordering is due to electrostatic energy and the Pauli's exclusion principle. The next section is entitled ``Exchange Interaction''. Starting from two electrons and an interacting Hamiltonian independent of spin, with the help of the exculusion principle the molecular Heisenberg model is derived. If the ``coupling constant'' $J_{12}$ for the spin-spin term in the the Heisenberg model is positive, a ferromagnetic alignment is favored in the ground state. The next model is the hydrogen molecule and the method of solution is that of Heitler-London. The treatment ends with a calculation of the molecular Heisenberg exchange parameter in terms of the exchange integral (which has no classical counterpart). The author explains that the term \textit{exchange} refers to ``the Coulomb energy cost upon exchanging the two electrons'' of $H2$. At this point, the text takes us through a number of models of magnetism which are `offspring' of the full Heisenberg model which is defined by the Hamiltonian of equation (3.4.1) for $N$ multielectron atoms. All of the models are valid, to one degree or another, for describing systems with various magnetic properties as a result of collective behavior for different sorts of matter, including metals, crytals, insulators, conductors,... The models considered include Ising, XY, RKKY, Hubbard (itinerant magnetization), mean field, ferromagnetic Heisenberg, antiferromagnetic Heisenberg and classical Heisenberg. As they describe many body non-trivial interaction systems it cannot be expected that general solutions will be found, but they have aspects which make them of considerable interest. For example, \textit{L. Onsager} [Phys. Rev., II. Ser. 65, 117--149 (1944; Zbl 0060.46001)] found the solution to the two dimensional Ising model, yielding an exact solution of a model showing an order-disorder phase transition. Another exact result is the theorem of Mermin and Wagner which proves the absence of ferromagnetism or antiferromagnetism in the one and two dimensional isotropic Heisenberg models. All in all, this chapter gives an interesting description of magnetism in solids. Chapter 4, Spin Waves and Magnons: The focus of the material on the Heisenberg model up to this point is its ground state, which exists at zero temperature. Is zero temperature possible? In a letter in [\textit{C. Castelnovo} et al., ``Magnetic monopoles in spin ice'', Nature 541, 42--45 (2008; \url{doi:10.1038/nature06433})], a group from NIST in Boulder reported obtaining a temperature no more than 0.000036 Kelvin, which is amazingly close. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with sound waves in solids and the corresponding excitation quanta known as phonons. These are accounted quasiparticles because, in part they have definite dispersion relations. The collective excitations of the ferromagnetic Heisenberg model are spin waves and the quanta are magnons. A visual representation of spin waves has been put out on the web by people at SLAC under the title Spin Waves. What we might call the calculus for this model is developed in the Heisenberg picture so that there is an equation of motion for the spin operators. A difficulty that appears is that the spin commutation relations are not conformed to their ladder counterparts. To overcome this, the Holstein-Primakoff transformation is applied, as a result of which the spin operators are given as nonlinear functions of the ladder operators. The subsequent analysis expands the nonlinear term in an operator valued series. This is then truncated leading to the magnon-magnon interaction. Applying this to a nearest neighbor simplification ends the chapter. It should be noted that magnons are spin-1 Bosons. Is a Bose-Einstein condensation possible? If so, is this the way to a supermagnet? Chapter 5, Magneto-Optical Effects. Chapter 6, Modern Topics: Chapter 5 concerns magneto-optical effects, Chapter 6 concerns cavity optomagnonics. I believe that these two chapters `speak for themselves' and the reader will not do better than work through them. The Faraday effect was a suprise and the amplification of the effect by means of a cavity a welcome result. Optomagnonics is evidently a new and upcoming `hybrid' system with the possibiliy of important experiments waiting to be conceived and implemented. Anyone working on such a project would definitely benefit from having a copy of this book with them in the lab or the desk. All in all, a very interesting, informative and useful book.