Relaxation time of weakly interacting superparamagnets

Department of Materials Science, Uppsala University Box 534, SE-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden

Received: 28 February 2001
Accepted: 16 May 2001

Abstract

The relaxation time of weakly interacting classical spins is calculated by introducing the averages of the local dipolar field, obtained by thermodynamic perturbation theory, in a rigorous expression for the single-spin thermoactivation rate in a weak but arbitrarily oriented field. At low temperatures the non-trivial dependence of the superparamagnetic blocking on the damping coefficient, numerically found by Berkov and Gorn, is reproduced by our model and interpreted in terms of the deviations from uniaxial anisotropy associated to the transversal component of the dipolar field acting on each spin.