Solitons in low-dimensional magnets: Elementary excitations with a nontrivial dispersion law

Abstract

Solitons are known to play the role of elementary excitations for one-dimensional ordered systems, like atomic chains with charge or spin ordering. The main characteristic of solitons is their dispersion relation, dependence of soliton energy on the linear momentum. Topological kink-type solitons are the simplest and most important for the description of many physical properties of one-dimensional magnets. Here we provide a detailed analysis of solitons in some general class of magnets, ferrimagnets with the spin compensation point. The nonlinear spin dynamics of ferrimagnets are examined using a nonlinear sigma-model for the antiferromagnetic vector, which is a generalization of the Landau-Lifshitz equation for ferromagnets and sigma-model for the antiferromagnets. The characteristic features of this equation are governed by the value of the compensation parameter, describing the rate of compensation of spins of sublattices. The dispersion relation for kink-type solitons appears to be quite nontrivial, including periodic dispersion law for continuum model of magnet or the presence of ending point for kink spectrum.