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Quantum Coherence In Small Antiferromagnets, S. E. Barnes, R. Ballou, B. Barbara, J. Strelen

Physics Articles and Papers

An antiferromagnetic particle with an excess spin j⃗ has 2 degrees of freedom. The one associated with j⃗ is ferromagnetic, while the antiferromagnetic behavior involves Néel vector n⃗. It is shown that the spin-parity effect described by Loss et al. has to do with the ferromagnetic degree of freedom and does not imply the localization of n⃗ for small enough particles for half-integer spin. It is also shown that the tunnel splitting associated with n⃗ is insensitive to applied fields.