Hysteresis in model spin system

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to construct a nonequilibrium statistical-mechanics theory to study hysteresis in ferromagnetic systems. We study the hysteretic response of model spin systems to periodic magnetic fields H(t) as a function of the amplitude H0 and frequency Ω. At fixed H0, we find conventional, squarelike hysteresis loops at low Ω, and rounded, roughly elliptical loops at high Ω, in agreement with experiments. For the O(N→∞), d=3, (Φ²)² model with Langevin dynamics, we find a novel scaling behavior for the area A of the hysteresis loop, of the form A∝H^0.660Ω^0.33. We carry out a Monte Carlo simulation of the hysteretic response of the two-dimensional, nearest-neighbor, ferromagnetic Ising model. These results agree qualitatively with the results obtained for the O(N) model.