Hysteresis in Magnetism

This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the physics of hysteresis in magnetism and of the mathematical tools used to describe it. "Hysteresis in Magnetism" discusses from a unified viewpoint, the relations of hysteresis to Maxwell's equations, equilibrium and non-equilibrium thermodynamics, non-linear system dynamics, micromagnetics, and domain theory. These aspects are then applied to the interpretation of magnetization reversal mechanisms: coherent rotation and switching in magnetic particles, stochastic domain wall motion and the Barkhausen effect, coercivity mechanisms and magnetic viscosity, rate-dependent hysteresis and eddy-current losses. The book emphasizes the connection between basic physical ideas and phenomenological models of interest to applications, and, in particular, to the conceptual path going from Maxwell's equations and thermodynamics to micromagnetics and to Preisach hysteresis modeling. Its key features include: the reader will get insight into the importance and role of hysteresis in magnetism; in particular, he will learn: which are the fingerprints of hysteresis in magnetism, which are the situations in which hysteresis may appear, how to describe mathematically these situations, how to apply these descriptions to magnetic materials, and how to interpret and predict magnetic hysteresis phenomena observed experimentally.