No label defined (Q4389915)

The authors study the minimization of the nonconvex and nonlocal energy functional \[ E(m)=\alpha\int_{\Omega}m_2^2dxdy+\varepsilon\int_\Omega | \nabla m| dxdy +\beta\int_{{\mathbb R}^2}| \nabla u| ^2dxdy, \] where \(\Omega :=(-L,L)\times (0,1)\), with respect to the class of functions \(m=(m_1,m_2)\in \text{BV}({\mathbb R}^2,{\mathbb R}^2)\) such that \(| m| =1\) in \(\Omega\) and \(m=0\) in \({\mathbb R}^2\setminus\Omega\). This functional corresponds to a sharp-interface reduction of the magnetic energy of a uniaxial ferromagnet and its study goes back to the pioneering works of Landau and Lifshitz. The authors identify the precise scaling law for the minimum energy in a certain parameter regime. The main result of the paper asserts that \(\min E\sim \eta^{1/3} \varepsilon^{2/3}L^{1/3}\), with \(\eta =\min\{\alpha ,\beta\}\), provided that \(L>1\) and the parameters \(\alpha\), \(\varepsilon\), \(\beta\) and \(L\) satisfy a certain compatibility condition. There are also studied some constrained versions of the considered minimization problem in which it is required that \(m_2=0\) almost everywhere. It is studied the case \(\beta\rightarrow\infty\) that corresponds to the small anisotropy, as well as \(\alpha\rightarrow\infty\) which describes the large anisotropy. The authors illustrate their study with several examples on the uniform magnetization, Kittel's structure or the Landau-Lifshitz structure.