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# Thermally assisted magnetization reversal in the presence of a spin-transfer torque

## I Introduction

Thermally assisted magnetization reversal has been the subject of intensive theoretical and experimental study for many decades. Aside from the relevance of the subject to emerging magnetic technology such as heat-assisted magnetic recording heat  and thermal stability of magnetic random access memory MRAM , fundamental physics of magnetization reversal process driven by white-noise is very rich. Classical transition-rate theory of Kramer Kramer  has supplied a framework in understanding thermal activation of a single domain magnetic element Brown . Namely, the thermal switching probability $`P(t)`$ can be described by the Néel-Brown (NB) relaxation-time formula, $`P(t)=1\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau )`$, where the relaxation time is $`\tau =f_0^1\mathrm{exp}(E_b/k_BT)`$, $`f_0`$ is an attempt frequency, $`E_b`$ is the energy barrier, and $`T`$ is the temperature. For a multi-domain structure, the energy surface becomes extremely complicated and identifying energy barriers are numerically non-trivial. Nevertheless, with recent development of micromagnetic modeling, one can understand thermal reversal reasonably well for a not-too-complicated structure Koch .

An implicit and yet critical assumption in the NB theory is that magnetization dynamics is governed by a torque from an effective magnetic field $`𝐇_{eff}=_𝐌E(𝐌)`$, where $`E(𝐌)`$ is the total magnetic energy, i.e., the effective field is derivable from the derivative of an energy function with respect to the magnetization vector. Therefore, an energy barrier is well-defined in the NB relaxation formula. If the torque is not derivable from an energy function, one would expect breakdown of the NB formula. Recently, a new class of torques, called spin transfer torque (STT), has been proposed Berger ; Slon  and verified experimentally Katine ; Kent . STT is derived from a spin polarized current in magnetic multilayers. For a spin valve structure, STT is written as Slon

$$𝚪_s=\frac{\gamma a_J}{M_s}𝐌\times (𝐌\times \widehat{𝐌}_p)$$
(1)
where $`a_J`$ represents the strength of STT; it is proportional to the current density. $`\gamma `$ is gyromagnetic ratio, $`\widehat{𝐌}_p`$ is a unit vector representing the direction of the magnetization of the pinned layer, $`𝐌`$ is the magnetization vector of the free layer and $`M_s=|𝐌|`$ is the saturation magnetization. If we define an effective field $`𝐇_J^{}(a_J/M_s)𝐌\times \widehat{𝐌}_p`$ from STT, it is evidently that $`𝐇_J^{}`$ can not be written as a total derivative of a function with respect to the magnetization vector, i.e., there is no well-defined energy associated with the field $`𝐇_J^{}`$.

Recent experiments Buhrman ; Bass1 ; JEW1  on the thermal effect of the spin torque had also indicated that the thermally assisted magnetization reversal can not be simply described by the NB formula. Urazhdin et al Bass1  found that the activation energy strongly depends on the magnitude as well as the direction of the current. To capture the gloss features of the observed experiments, they have to introduce an effective temperature unrelated to the true temperature in the NB formula. Their proposed effective temperature was then interpreted via a possible magnetic heating and magnetic excitations from the spin transfer torque. The current directional dependence of the effective temperature indicated that the heating is not of the ordinary current-induced Joule heating. However, no attempt has been made to mathematically link the effective temperature with the spin transfer torque of Eq. (1).

The problem of thermally assisted escape process driven by a non-gradient driven force, not derivable from a potential, is an unresolved outstanding problem in statistical physics. While there are already some efforts to formulate the escape time in this case, the general conclusion is that the law of escape time lacks universality and a variety of scaling relations exist Stein . The standard treatment of the thermal escape problem in the presence of a non-gradient field would start from the Fokker-Planck (FP) equation and one numerically solves for the probability distribution Stein . This procedure involves proper averaging over the possible escape trajectories. Let us consider the total work done by the conservative torque and the non-conservative STT along an arbitrary trajectory,

$`\delta W={\displaystyle (𝐇_{eff}+𝐇_J^{})𝑑𝐌}`$
$`=E_b{\displaystyle \frac{a_J}{M_s}}{\displaystyle _{𝐌_0}^{𝐌_f}}(𝐌\times 𝐞_x)𝑑𝐌`$ (2)
where we have assumed that the magnetization vector starts at an initial equilibrium point $`𝐌_0=M_s𝐞_x`$ and reaches to an energy saddle point $`𝐌_f`$, and we have defined the energy barrier from the conservative torque $`E_b=E(𝐌_f)E(𝐌_0)`$. One immediately realizes that $`\delta W`$ defined above depends on the escape trajectory. In the absence of STT, one relies on the assumption that the most probable path of the escape is through a minimum energy barrier, i.e., $`𝐌_f`$ would be an energy saddle point. In the presence of STT, such assumption breaks down in general. In the present paper we do not intend to address the general problem of the thermal escape in an open system, rather we want to answer a very focused question: to what extent one can formulate the thermal agitation in terms of a simplified Néel-Brown activation process and to what accuracy one can analyze the relevant experimental data through a simple effective formula we will develop in the later sections. The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II, we propose the stochastic Landau-Lifshitz equation and its corresponding Fokker-Planck equation in the presence of the current. In Sec. III, we introduce a stationary solution for the probability density of magnetization by identifying an effective barrier or an effective temperature associated with spin torques. In Sec. IV, we present a numerical calculation to demonstrate the validity of our theory in several realistic cases. Finally, we compare our theory with existing experiments and summarize our theory.

## II Stochastic Landau-Lifshitz equation in the presence of currents

Let us first explicitly propose the following generalized stochastic Landau-Lifshitz (LL) equation that describes dynamics of the magnetization vector subject to a STT at finite temperatures

$$\frac{d𝐌}{dt}=\gamma 𝐌\times (𝐇_{eff}+𝐡_r)\frac{\gamma \alpha }{M_s}𝐌\times [𝐌\times (𝐇_{eff}+𝐡_r)]+𝚪_s,$$
(3)
where $`\alpha `$ is the damping constant, $`𝐇_{eff}`$ is the effective magnetic field including the external field, the anisotropy field, the exchange field, and the demagnetization field, and $`𝐡_r`$ is a fluctuating field with a Gaussian stochastic process whose statistical properties are defined as

$$<h_r^i(t)>=0;<h_r^i(t)h_r^j(t^{})>=2D\delta _{ij}\delta (tt^{})$$
(4)
where $`i`$ and $`j`$ are Cartesian indices, $`D`$ represents the strength of the thermal fluctuations whose value will be determined later. $`<>`$ denotes an average taken over all realization of the fluctuating field. In the absence of the spin torque, the above equation is the standard stochastic LL equation. Note that we have conveniently dropped the customary renormalized gyromagnetic ratio $`\gamma /(1+\alpha ^2)`$ when compared with the standard Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. The critical assumption of our proposed stochastic LL equation, Eq. (3), is that the spin torque does not contain a fluctuating field $`𝐡_r`$. The justification for this choice is that the spin torque comes from the conduction electrons whose transport properties are less affected by thermal fluctuations since the Fermi level is much higher than the thermal energy. Therefore, the thermal fluctuation would not appear to affect $`a_J`$ which represents the strength of the spin torque. We believe that our proposed stochastic LL equation captures the main random processes induced by thermal fluctuation. Nevertheless, one could, in principle, have introduced a second random field or torques to take into account the fluctuation of the spin torque. In our proposed LL equation, the thermal effect on the spin torque is only encoded in the dependence of the magnetization vector.

To establish the thermal properties from the above stochastic equation, one must take a proper thermal average. Fortunately, much of theoretical work on the stochastic LL in the absence of the spin torque had been carried out Brown ; Lazaro . Here we will follow and generalize the procedure pioneered by Brown Brown . We define $`P(𝐌,t)`$ as a non-equilibrium probability density for magnetic orientation vectors associated with the stochastic Eq. (3). The rate equation for $`P(𝐌,t)`$ is

$$\frac{P}{t}+\mathbf{}𝐉\lambda ^2P=0$$
(5)
where the probability current density $`𝐉=Pd𝐌/dt`$, $`\mathbf{}`$ is a short notation for the gradient operator on the magnetization vector $`\mathbf{}_𝐌`$, and $`\lambda `$ is the diffusion constant whose value is determined by fluctuation-dissipation theorem. In the present case, $`\lambda `$ is related to $`D`$ by $`\lambda =(1/2)D\gamma _0(1+\alpha ^2)`$. The above rate equation, Eq. (5), is a simple statement for the angular momentum conservation: the change of probability density in an enclosed small volume (first term) has to be balanced by the net probability in-flowing flux (second term) plus the probability density loss via spin diffusion (third term). By inserting Eq. (3) into Eq. (5), after a straightforward but rather tedious algebra manipulation footnotes , the resulting equation is the Fokker-Planck equation

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{P}{t}=\mathbf{}\{[\gamma 𝐌\times 𝐇_{eff}+𝚪_s\frac{\gamma \alpha }{M_s}𝐌\times (𝐌\times 𝐇_{eff})\hfill & & \\ +\gamma ^2(1+\alpha ^2)D𝐌\times (𝐌\times \mathbf{})]P\}\hfill & & \end{array}$$
(6)
In the absence of the spin torque, i.e., $`𝚪_s=0`$, the thermal equilibrium distribution density $`P`$ demands to take the form of the Boltzmann distribution function, i.e., $`P(a_J=0,T)\mathrm{exp}(E/k_BT)`$ where $`T`$ is the temperature and $`E`$ is the energy defined by $`H_{eff}=\text{ }\mathbf{}E`$. Inserting this equilibrium $`P(a_J=0,T)`$ into Eq. (6), one finds that

$$D=\frac{\alpha }{1+\alpha ^2}\frac{k_BT}{\gamma M_s};$$
(7)
this is the well-known dissipation-fluctuation relation. We now postulate that the fluctuating field is independent of the spin torque. This hypothesis is consistent with our notion that the spin torque is a deterministic action so that the spin torque does not alter the randomness induced by the thermal fluctuation. With this identification, the stochastic LL equation, Eq. (3), and its corresponding Fokker-Planck equation, Eq. (6), completely determine the dynamics of the magnetization vector at finite temperature $`T`$.

## III Stationary solution and effective temperatures

Before we numerically solve the above stochastic LL equation for a number of interesting cases, we should first look for a stationary solution in Eq. (6), i.e., $`P=P_0(𝐌)`$ is independent of time. Without the spin torque, this solution is known as the equilibrium Boltzmann distribution function mentioned earlier. With the spin torque, the system is no more in an equilibrium state because the system is subject to the spin torque and thus it is not a closed system. For an open system, the law of thermal dynamics does not require the minimum free energy and the concept of thermal equilibrium breaks down. Nevertheless, it is still meaningful to obtain a stationary solution $`P_s`$ where Fokker-Planck probability density is time-independent $`P_s/t=0`$. Thus,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\mathbf{}\{[\gamma 𝐌\times 𝐇_{eff}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_s\frac{\gamma \alpha }{M_s}𝐌\times (𝐌\times 𝐇_{eff})\hfill & & \\ +\gamma ^2(1+\alpha ^2)D𝐌\times (𝐌\times \mathbf{})]P_s\}=0\hfill & & \end{array}$$
(8)
Unfortunately, the above eigenstate problem for an arbitrary field $`𝐇_{eff}`$ is generally difficult to solve. One can immediately verify that the Boltzmann probability density $`P_0\mathrm{exp}(E/k_BT)`$ is no more a solution of the above equation. To make progress, we need to consider a special case below. First, we recall that the Néel-Brown formula for the thermal agitation is in fact most useful where the energy barrier constructed by $`𝐇_{eff}`$ is much higher than the thermal energy $`k_BT`$. In this limit, the probability density will be very small if the direction of the magnetization vector is away from the energy minimum. Here we should also consider this case. We now tentatively seek a solution of $`P_s`$ in the form of $`P_s\mathrm{exp}(E/k_BT^{})`$ where we have introduced an effective temperature $`T^{}`$ that will be determined next. By placing this $`P_s`$ into Eq. (8) and by utilizing the identity $`\mathbf{}(𝐌\times 𝐇_{eff}P_s)\mathbf{}(𝐌\times \mathbf{}P_s)=0`$, we find

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\mathbf{}\{[\alpha (\frac{T}{T^{}}1)𝐌\times (𝐌\times 𝐇_{eff})\hfill & & \\ +a_J𝐌\times (𝐌\times 𝐌_p)]P_s\}=0\hfill & & \end{array}$$
(9)
Clearly, the above equation does not necessarily have a solution for an arbitrary effective field. However, as we point out earlier, we have limited ourselves to a high barrier case such that the magnetization vector at the stationary condition is nearly at the direction of $`𝐌_p`$. For concreteness, let us consider a most experimentally relevant geometry where $`𝐌_p=𝐞_x`$ and

$$𝐇_{eff}=(H_{ext}+\frac{H_K}{M_s}M_x)𝐞_x4\pi M_z𝐞_z$$
(10)
where $`H_{ext}`$ is the external field which is applied at x-direction, $`H_K`$ is the anisotropy field, and $`4\pi M_z𝐞_z`$ is the demagnetization field perpendicular to the plane of the film. In this case, the energy minimum are at $`M_x=\pm M_s`$, $`M_y=M_z=0`$. We simply keep the first order in $`M_y`$ and $`M_z`$, and set $`M_x=\sqrt{M_s^2M_y^2M_z^2}=M_s`$ up to the first order, we find

$`𝐌\times (𝐌\times 𝐇_{eff})M_y(H_{ext}+H_K)𝐞_y`$
$`+M_z(H_{ext}+H_K+4\pi M_s)𝐞_z`$ (11)
and $`𝐌\times (𝐌\times 𝐌_p)M_y𝐞_y+M_z𝐞_z`$. By placing these expressions into Eq. (9) and carrying out the divergence $`\mathbf{}`$ for $`M_y`$ and $`M_z`$ components we find (one noticed that the divergence operator on $`P_s`$ produces higher orders since Eq. (11) is already the first order in $`M_y`$ and $`M_z`$, thus it is consistent with our approximation by neglecting the terms of divergence on $`P_s`$),

$$\alpha (2\pi M_s+H_{ext}+H_K)\left(\frac{T}{T^{}}1\right)+a_J=0$$
(12)
or

$$T^{}=T\left(1\frac{a_J}{a_c}\right)^1$$
(13)
where we defined a critical spin torque $`a_c=\alpha (H_{ext}+H_K+2\pi M_s)`$. Coincidentally, this critical spin torque is precisely the minimum spin torque required to switch the magnetization at zero temperature Sun .

We should point out that the concept of the effective temperature introduced here should be understood in terms of the stationary solution of the probability density. The thermally averaged dynamical variable, for example, the magnetization vector $`<𝐌>=P_s𝐌\mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta d\varphi `$ would behave as if the temperature of the system is $`T^{}`$. However, the magnetic temperature which is defined through the thermal fluctuation remains to be $`T`$. An alternative understanding of this effective temperature is to rewrite the stationary solution by $`P_0\mathrm{exp}(E^{}/k_BT)`$ where $`E^{}`$ is an effective activation energy

$$E^{}=E\left(1\frac{a_J}{a_c}\right).$$
(14)
In other word, we can state that the spin torque alters the magnetic energy and thus there will be an effective energy barrier associated with the spin current. Therefore, it is equivalent to think of the effect of the spin torque via the modification of the temperature or of the energy barrier.

To conclude this section, we have found a stationary solution $`P_s`$ of the stochastic LL equation. Since the life time or the relaxation time $`\tau `$ is inversely proportional to the probability density $`P_s`$, we can write the generalized Brown-Néel formula below

$$\tau ^1=f_0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{E_b(1a_J/a_c)}{k_BT}\right)$$
(15)
where $`f_0`$ is an attempt frequency and $`E_b`$ is the energy barrier.

## IV Comparison between numerical and analytical Results

The stationary solution, $`P_s\mathrm{exp}[E(𝐌)/k_BT^{}]`$, is based on the assumption of high energy barrier assumption. In general cases, one should start the calculation of magnetization dynamics from our generalized LL equation, Eq. (3). Since the stationary solution is simple and easy to use in analyzing experimental data, it would be necessary to establish the range of validity of Eq. (15) for various interesting experimental situations. Once its validity is established, we expect that our stationary solution would be serving as a starting point to understand various thermal agitation phenomena in the present of the current. In this Section, we numerically integrate Eq. (3) and compare the result with $`P_s`$.

The standard white-noise spectrum, Eq. (4) where $`D`$ is given by Eq (7), is used for the modeling of the temperature dependence of random fields. The calculation procedure is same as that for the standard LLG equation, except a spin torque is added to the equation of the motion. A magnetic layer, whose lateral size is 64nm$`\times `$64nm and whose thickness is 2.5nm, is treated as a single macrospin. The in-plane uniaxial anisotropy field $`H_K`$ is $`500`$(Oe) and the saturation magnetization is $`4\pi M_s=12,000`$ (Oe). These parameters are reasonably consistent with the experiments performed by the Cornell group Katine . The Gilbert damping constant was taken as $`\alpha =0.03`$ throughout the modeling. The magnetization of the free layer is initially saturated at $`+x`$ direction. At $`t=0`$, we apply a magnetic field at $`x`$ direction whose magnitude is close to but less than the anisotropy field $`H_K`$. At the same time, $`a_J`$ is also applied to the system. Equation (3) was numerically integrated in time using the stochastic Heun method with a 0.3ps time step. A smaller time step has been tested and it yields nearly identical results in all the cases presented in the paper.

With above specified parameters and procedure, we first determine the probability $`P(t)`$ that the magnetic layer has been reversed within the waiting time $`t`$. By performing up to $`5\times 10^4`$ independent runs for each set of parameters (each run starts at $`t=0`$ and ends at the time that the magnetization has either been just switched or ends at the time up to $`t=5\mu s`$, whichever is smaller) and then by recording the number of them that the magnetization is switched at time interval ($`t`$, $`t+\mathrm{\Delta }t`$), we obtained a simulated $`P(t)`$ that is fitted by a simple exponential function, i.e., $`P(t)=1\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau )`$ where $`\tau `$ is the fitting parameter for the relaxation time. We have found that the fit works remarkably well for any values of $`a_J`$ we have considered. In Fig. 1, we show the fitted relaxation time $`\tau `$ as a function of the temperature for a fixed applied field $`H_{ext}=440Oe`$. Two features are immediately seen: first the data fall on a straight line for any fixed $`a_J`$; this indicates the thermally assisted reversal can be described by an activation process, i.e., $`\mathrm{ln}\tau 1/k_BT`$. Therefore, it is meaningful to introduce an effective activation energy, see Eq. (14), in accordance with the Néel-Brown law of thermal agitation. The second conclusion is that the slope, or the activation energy depends on STT: the positive $`a_J`$ favors a lower energy barrier. All these features are well described by Eqs. (13)-(15).

In Fig. 2, the effective activation energies are shown to be linearly dependent on the current and they vanish at almost the same point $`a_c`$ for different external fields \[note that $`a_c`$ is weakly dependent on the external field, see the definition of $`a_c`$ after Eq. (13)\]. In the insert of Fig. 2, we have shown the activation energy as a function of the magnetic field for several different STT. The activation energy can be fitted by

$`E_b^{}=E_b(H_{ext})\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{a_J}{a_c}}\right)`$
$`=E_0\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{H_{ext}}{H_s}}\right)^\beta \left(1{\displaystyle \frac{a_J}{a_c}}\right)`$ (16)
where $`H_s`$ is the switching field at zero temperature, $`E_0`$ is the energy barrier at zero magnetic field field, and $`\beta `$ is a constant, which has been argued to be 1.5 or 2. The exponent $`\beta =2`$ for the external field applied parallel to the easy axis. These simulated results confirm our analytical result, Eq. (14).

## V Comparison with experimental data

A number of experiments on spin torque induced thermal agitation had been carried out. It would be interesting to see whether our prediction, Eq. (15), agrees with these existing data. The phenomenon that we want to compare first is so-called “telegraph noises” or dwell times. Experimentally, one simultaneously applies an external magnetic field and a spin current to a spin valve structure so that the magnetization direction of the free layer is fluctuating from one direction to another due to thermal agitation Bass1 ; JEW2 . The dwell time $`\tau _P`$ $`(\tau _{AP})`$ is defined as an average time the magnetization of the free layer is parallel (antiparallel) to that of the fixed layer. In general, $`\tau _P\tau _{AP}`$. However, by adjusting the magnetic field or the spin current, one is able to obtain an equal dwell time for parallel and antiparallel states, $`\tau _P=\tau _{AP}`$. From Eq. (15) for the parallel and the antiparallel states, the condition of the equal dwell time is

$$\left(1+\frac{H_{ext}}{H_s}\right)^{1.5}\left(1\frac{I}{I_c^{AP}}\right)=\left(1\frac{H_{ext}}{H_s}\right)^{1.5}\left(1\frac{I}{I_c^P}\right)$$
(17)
where $`I_c^{AP}`$ and $`I_c^P`$ are the critical currents for the magnetization switching from antiparallel to parallel alignments and vice versa; their magnitudes are not necessary the same, i.e., $`I_c^{AP}I_c^P`$ in a typical experimental geometry Buhrman ; JEW1 . To compare our prediction, Eq. (17), with experiments, we plot the H-I phase diagram of equal dwell time $`\tau _P=\tau _{AP}`$ in Fig. 3.

It is noted that we have shifted the external field by $`H_{sh}=22(mT)`$ to take into account of the magnetic coupling between the free and fixed layers. The coupling may come from either the exchange or dipolar couplings. Since we assume that the magnetization of the fixed layer is held at the direction of $`𝐞_x`$, the free layer receives an effective coupling field that will be added to $`H_{ext}`$ in Eq. (17). Evidently, the agreement between our results and the experimental data is excellent JEW1 ; JEW2 .

Next we compare the ratio of the dwell times of antiparallel and parallel states for a fixed magnetic field. Again, from Eq. (15), we have

$$\frac{\mathrm{ln}(f_0\tau _P)}{\mathrm{ln}(f_0\tau _{AP})}=\frac{\left(1\frac{H_{ext}}{H_s}\right)^{1.5}\left(1\frac{I}{I_c^P}\right)}{\left(1+\frac{H_{ext}}{H_s}\right)^{1.5}\left(1\frac{I}{I_c^{AP}}\right)}$$
(18)
In Fig. 4, we show the ratio of the dwell times for a fixed magnetic field as a function of the spin torque by using the same set of experimental parameters as in Fig. 3. The results are consistent with experimental data (however, the data points in Ref.JEW1 ; JEW2  are rather scattered so that I do not include those data in the figure).

Up till now, we have studied the thermal activation by abruptly introducing an external field and a STT at t=0. In experiments, there are ramping times, e.g., STT is gradually increasing at rate of, say $`10^5Oe/\mu s`$ Buhrman  and care must be taken when one compares our theory, Eq. (15), with experiments. In the current ramping period, $`a_J`$ is not a constant and thus the activation energy, Eq. (16), varies with time. In this case, one should utilize the differential form of the switching probability instead of $`P(t)=1\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau )`$,

$$\frac{dP(t)}{1P(t)}=\frac{dt}{\tau (t)}.$$
(19)
By assuming a linear ramping of STT, i.e., $`C=\frac{da_J}{dt}`$ is a constant and by placing Eqs. (15) and (16) into Eq. (19), we integrate Eq. (19) from $`t=0`$ to $`t=t_0`$ and find the average switching STT $`a_c(T,C)a_J(t_0)`$

$$a_c(T,C)a_c\left[1\frac{k_BT}{E_b}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{f_0^{}k_BTa_c}{E_bC}\right)\right]$$
(20)
where $`f_0^{}=f_0\mathrm{ln}[1P(t_0)]`$. The variance of the switching STT is found as

$$\sigma _aa_c\frac{k_BT}{E_b}$$
(21)
These relations, Eqs. (20) and (21), are consistent with earlier studies on the similar energy barrier formalism for a very different physical system Kurkijarvi .

Numerically, the finite ramping rate can be rather easily handled. In determining $`a_c(T,C)`$ at finite temperature, we ramp $`a_J`$ with a fixed rate. At a certain time, the magnetization vector switches and we record the value of $`a_J`$. By repeating the above procedure 800 times, we are able to establish the switching $`a_J`$ histograms from which the mean switching $`a_c(T,C)`$ and its standard deviation $`\sigma _a`$ are obtained. At temperature between $`100K`$ and $`300K`$, we calculated the mean and standard deviation of the distributions at a sweeping rate between $`0.001Oe/ns`$ and $`0.1Oe/ns`$. As expected for a thermally activated process, $`a_c(T,C)`$ increases with decreasing temperature and with increasing sweeping rate. Figure 5 shows temperature and sweeping rate dependence of $`a_c(T,C)`$ and $`\sigma _a`$.

A logarithmic dependence of $`a_c(T,C)`$ on the sweeping rate has been found, which is in a good agreement to Eq.(20). Moreover, the inset of Fig. 5 describes the temperature dependence of $`a_c(T,C)`$ and $`\sigma _a`$. We have verified that the temperature dependence of $`\sigma _a`$ is a linear relationship and $`a_c(T,C)`$ monotonically decreases with increasing $`T`$.

Myers et al Buhrman  have discovered that the thermal activation driven by spin torque is qualitatively different from that driven by the magnetic field. They have suggested an activation energy whose form is similar to ours, except that they have postulated an arbitrary exponent, i.e., $`\delta W(1a_J/a_c)^\xi `$. Although they have stated that $`\xi `$ might be 1.5, most of experimental data shown in the paper can be used to determine the value of $`\xi `$. One set of data, Fig. 1(d) of Ref. , shows that $`a_c(T,C)`$ linearly increases with $`\mathrm{ln}C`$ as predicted by our Eq. (15). If one uses different scaling relation, e.g., $`\delta W(1a_J/a_c)^{1.5}`$, one would obtain $`a_c(T,C)(\mathrm{ln}C)^{2/3}`$ that would disagree with the experimental data. Therefore, the existing data support the linear scaling between the activation energy and the spin torque.

## VI Conclusions

In summary, we have extended the law of thermal agitation to include the spin transfer torque driven by the spin polarized current in magnetic multilayers. Although the concept of the energy barrier or the temperature in the Néel-Brown formula breaks down in the presence of the spin transfer torque, we are able to re-establish the Néel-Brown formula by properly introducing an activation energy or an effective temperature to replace the true energy barrier or true lattice temperature. Our formalism is further supported by numerical solutions and is in agreement with experimental results.

This work is supported by NSF (ECS-0223568).


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# Multi-epoch H i line measurements of 4 southern pulsars

## 1 Introduction

In 1990, a major review of H i in the Galaxy found little evidence for structure in the interstellar medium (ISM) on scales less than about $`10^{16}`$ m \[Dickey & Lockman 1990\]. However, subsequent studies have all reached the conclusion that virtually every line of sight exhibits structure on scales at least 3 orders of magnitude smaller than this. Recent interest has focussed on determining structure at the very small scales (hundreds of AU and below). Different techniques have been used, (a) looking at the changes in H i and molecular profiles in high-resolution images of extragalactic objects across the source and/or over a period of time \[Diamond et al. 1989, Moore & Marscher 1995, Davis, Diamond & Goss 1996, Faison et al. 1998, Faison & Goss 2001\], (b) observing Na i absorption lines along lines of sight to binary stars \[Watson & Meyer 1996, Lauroesch, Meyer & Blades 2000\], and globular clusters \[Meyer & Lauroesch 1999\] and (c) observing changes in the H i absorption profile of strong pulsars over a period of years \[Frail et al. 1991, Deshpande et al. 1992, Frail et al. 1994\].

For the most part, these observations have been interpreted in terms of individual gas clouds moving in/out of the line-of-sight; the small (transverse) length-scales, coupled with the substantial changes in column-density then imply small, dense clouds whose properties challenge our understanding of the ISM. The densities inferred for these small clouds are typically $`2\times 10^4`$ cm-3, and even at temperatures as low as 10 K, such clouds are over-pressured with respect to other phases of the ISM, and are thus expected to dissipate on a time-scale of $`100`$ yr, unless some containment mechanism can be found. Possible mechanisms include magnetic confinement of the clouds, or that clumpy molecular clouds may have structure with a high fractal dimension. Heiles (1997) has proposed a geometrical solution in terms of sheets and filaments rather than spherical clouds. Gwinn (2001) has a model in which interstellar scintillation differences on-line compared to off-line can induce the variations seen in the difference spectra of Frail et al. (1994). Deshpande (2000) recently provided an alternative solution to the problem. Based on observations made towards Cas A and Cyg A \[Deshpande, Dwarakanath & Goss 2000\] he suggests that observers are detecting (small) optical depth changes along different lines of sight in large clouds, with contributions to the difference in column-densities arising from the whole line-of-sight. In other words, as Deshpande (2000) points out, a given transverse length scale does not correspond to a unique three-dimensional length scale, so that physically small clouds need not exist at all, thus avoiding any difficulty with over-pressured clouds. Whether or not the fluctuations seen against extragalactic sources can be extrapolated down to the few AU level remains to be settled. Faison et al. (1998), for example, showed that not all optical depth variations observed towards extragalactic sources fit this model. Their H i spectra towards 3C138 show variations far larger than expected.

Frail et al. (1994) observed six pulsars with the Arecibo telescope over three epochs spanning 1.7 yr with a velocity resolution of 0.5 km s-1. They saw opacity variations towards many individual features in all six objects. As the origin of the small-scale fluctuations is far from clear cut, and as other authors have urged \[Heiles 1997, Faison & Goss 2001\], we therefore decided to follow the experiment of Frail et al. (1994) with a similar one observing southern pulsars. A new correlator at the Parkes telescope has enabled us to observe both with 0.1 km s-1 velocity resolution and sufficient time resolution to allow pulse gating.

## 2 Source Selection

Our choice of pulsars was essentially dictated by the need to observe the brightest sources at 1420 MHz, the frequency of the H i line. Although the nearby Vela pulsar heads this list, preliminary observations showed that there is no H i absorption in its direction and it was excluded. (We note, also, that the Vela pulsar exhibits deep and variable spectral modulation on the frequency scales relevant here. This modulation, which is due to diffractive interstellar scintillation, increases the variance on the average spectrum at any epoch to a value much greater than the thermal noise level.) This left PSRs B0736–40, B1451–68 and B1641–45 as the candidate stars. It so happens that their properties are very different.

PSR B0736–40 was most recently observed in H i by Johnston et al. (1996) who obtained a lower distance limit of 2.1 kpc. The pulsar lies behind the Gum Nebula which contributes to its dispersion measure but even then the mean electron density along the line of sight is large for its distance. Proper motion measurements \[Downs & Reichley 1983, Fomalont et al. 1992\] imply a velocity of 800$`\pm `$130 km s-1 at the lower distance limit which indicates that the pulsar is unlikely to be much further than this. Mitra & Ramachandran (2001) assign a distance of 4.5 kpc to this pulsar based on scattering measurements but we note that they have not taken into account the H ii region along the line of sight discussed in Johnston et al. (1996). A velocity of 800 km s-1 implies the pulsar moves a distance of 170 AU yr-1.

PSR B1451–68 has a parallax distance of 450$`\pm `$60 pc \[Bailes et al. 1990\] and was observed in H i by Koribalski et al. (1995). Only local absorption was detected. Its proper motion of 41 mas yr-1 \[Bailes et al. 1990\] translates to a distance across our line of sight of 18 AU yr-1.

PSR B1641–45 lies in the Galactic plane at a latitude of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2. The most recent H i observations by Frail et al. (1991) show deep absorption from +10 to –59 km s-1 and a lack of absorption at an emission feature at –77 km s-1. The pulsar therefore lies in the distance range 4.2 to 5.0 kpc.

Finally, we added PSR B1557–50 to the list. Deshpande et al. (1992) compared H i spectra from this pulsar taken in the 1970s and saw differences between them. We had observed this pulsar previously, in 1994 \[Johnston et al. 2001\], and we therefore repeated the observation again in 2000 August. The lower limit to the distance from the H i measurements is 6.4 kpc. Neither PSR B1641–45 nor B1557–50 have measured proper motions.

## 3 Observations

New H i observations towards the southern pulsars PSRs B0736–40, B1451–68 and B1641–45 were carried out on 1998 March 6–9, 1998 September 27–29 and 2000 August 3-9 using the 64-m Parkes radio telescope. An identical receiver system, correlator backend and observing procedure were used for all 3 epochs. However, in 1998, analogue filters were used to achieve a 4 MHz passband and these were replaced with digital filters prior to the 2000 observations.

We used the centre beam of the 13-beam ‘multibeam’ receiver \[Staveley-Smith et al. 1996\]. The digital correlator was configured to record two polarizations each with either 4096 or 8192 channels across a total bandwidth of 4 MHz giving a velocity range of $`\pm `$400 km s-1 and a resolution of 0.25 or 0.12 km s-1. The pulsar period was subdivided into 8 phase bins for the 4096 channel mode or 4 phase bins for the 8192 channel mode. Data were folded synchronously with the pulsar period for an integration time of 10 s. The relative phase of the pulse peak could be shifted to ensure that the pulse fell entirely within one phase bin. Prior to the observation, the local oscillator would be set with the appropriate Doppler delay necessary to maintain the H i rest frequency in the same correlator channel. The total time for any single observations did not exceed 45 min on any one source in order to reduce the Doppler smearing to less than one channel during the integration.

In addition, we made observations of PSR B1557–50 in 2000 August. Previous observations of this pulsar had been made in October 1994 and an interesting, narrow, deep absorption feature was detected against gas with a temperature of only 20 K \[Johnston et al. 2001\]. The 1994 observations were made with a 512 channel correlator configuration (velocity resolution 2.0 km s-1) and we repeated this configuration again in 2000.

Table 1 lists the pulsar parameters including the Galactic coordinates, the dispersion measure, period and flux density at 1.4 GHz. This information was obtained from the catalogue of Taylor, Manchester & Lyne (1993). Table 1 further lists the velocity resolution followed by the observing time in minutes during the 1994 October, 1998 March, 1998 September and 2000 August observing sessions. The 1994 October observations of PSRs B0736–40 and B1451–68 are described in Johnston et al. (1996) and Koribalski et al. (1995). The velocity resolution of these observations was 2.0 km s-1.

## 4 Data Analysis

The data consist of a spectrum for each phase bin for each of two polarizations for each 10 s of data. These ‘sub-integrations’ are collected together to form the 45 min integration. First, the total power (zero lag) from each of the 10 s sub-integrations is examined and points significantly higher than the mean are assumed to be affected by interference and are flagged. Calibration is then performed on each phase bin and each polarization independently by the total power in the spectrum.

The pulse profile is then formed for each polarization by collapsing all time and frequency information. This yields the location of the ‘off-pulse’ and ‘on-pulse’ bins. Once these are known, a reference spectrum is formed by summing all the ‘off-pulse’ bins together over the entire time span and both polarizations. Bandpass fitting is then performed on this spectrum (excluding the H i emission channels) with a polynomial function usually of order 2 or 3.

An on-pulse spectrum for each polarization is then created from the phase bin containing the pulse. The two polarizations are kept separate for the on-pulse measurements: pulsars are highly polarized and so different power is seen in the two polarization channels. The absorption spectrum is then created by multiplying this on-pulse spectrum by its total power and subtracting the reference spectrum multiplied by its total power. This ensures an off emission baseline level of 1.0. In practice, however, we found that the baseline was not perfectly flat after this procedure and so the resultant absorption spectrum was again bandpass flattened. Finally the absorption spectrum is weighted according to the pulsar power. This allows for observations made for the different polarization channels and at different times to be summed together whilst maximising signal to noise.

The formation of ‘ghost’ absorption is a potential source of error, especially when observing strong pulsars. This is caused by the fact that the power from each single pulse is not measured, rather an average power over the 10-s subintegration is measured. Therefore if the pulsar is strong (compared to the system temperature) and variable within the subintegration length, the calibration is not perfect and some of the emission spectrum leaks into the absorption spectrum \[Weisberg, Rankin & Boriakoff 1980\]. This can be removed by a least squares fitting process and is discussed for each pulsar separately in Section 5.

When assessing the differences between spectra from different epochs, it is vital to take into account the increase in the system temperature due to the H i contribution. Off-line, the measured rms in the spectrum is a result of receiver noise (22 K) and the sky background (2-15 K). The sky background was computed from the values in Haslam et al. (1982) at 408 MHz scaled to 1.4 GHz assuming a spectral index of –2.6. On-line, the rms is increased by the H i contribution, which can have a brightness temperature of up to 120 K. Therefore, the rms on the line can be up to 5 times as high as off the line. The emission spectra for the pulsars have been scaled to fit the Kerr et al. (1986) observations at the appropriate Galactic coordinates.

## 5 Results on individual sources

### 5.1 PSR B0736–40

Figure 1 shows the H i emission and absorption spectra for PSR B0736–40 from data taken in 2000 August. The absorption spectrum has been smoothed to yield an effective velocity resolution of 1.0 km s-1 similar to that obtained in 1994 \[Johnston et al. 1996\]. A comparison between the 1994 and 2000 spectra shows that the absorption depth was significantly deeper against both emission features in the 1994 data. In hindsight, we believe that ‘ghosting’ of the emission spectrum into the absorption spectrum was taking place in 1994 and was not fully corrected for. The observation time in 1994 was only 90 mins compared to 1350 min in 2000. The resultant difference spectrum (not shown) is dominated by the noise from the earlier epoch and no significant changes are seen after the ghosting has been corrected for.

The difference between the spectra taken in 1998 September and 2000 August is shown in Figure 2 smoothed to a velocity resolution of 1.0 km s-1. There are no obvious features in this difference plot and the distribution of the points are consistent with Gaussian noise. The 2-$`\sigma `$ upper limit is $``$0.12 on the line itself which is somewhat higher than the changes detected in the pulsars observed by Frail et al. (1994).

### 5.2 PSR B1451–68

The H i absorption spectrum for this pulsar consists of a single asymmetric feature peaking at a velocity near 0 km s-1 and extending to 6 km s-1 \[Koribalski et al. 1995\]. The difference between spectra taken in 1998 March and 2000 August is shown in Figure 3 after smoothing to a velocity resolution of 1.0 km s-1. We see no evidence for any significant changes in the absorption spectrum. Similar results are obtained between the 1998 September and 2000 August epochs. Again, comparison with data taken in 1994 is less interesting as the on-source time was less than half that obtained for the later data.

### 5.3 PSR B1641–45

Figure 4 shows the H i emission and absorption spectra for PSR B1641–45 from data obtained in 2000 Aug. The absorption spectrum is very similar to that obtained at the VLA by Frail et al. (1991) although our resolution of 0.25 km s-1 is significantly higher than theirs (2.5 km s-1). At positive velocities, H i absorption is seen at 4 km s-1, presumably against local gas, but is not seen at 22 km s-1against gas located beyond the solar circle. At negative velocities the last feature at which absorption is detected is at –58 km s-1. It is apparent from Fig. 4 that ‘ghost’ absorption is seen against emission features more negative than –70 km s-1 and also against the emission at +22 km s-1. We removed the effect of this ghosting by fitting the ‘ghost’ absorption with a fraction of the emission using a least squares technique. The derived ghosting was at the 5% level.

The H i absorption spectrum is shown in more detail in Figure 5 where a plethora of narrow lines can be seen which make this pulsar ideal for a study of opacity variations. At least 12 individual lines are seen but the full-width half-maxima (FWHM) of the features are not less than 0.8 km s-1 and are typically 1.2 to 2.0 km s-1. This is similar to results found in other high resolution H i studies \[Crovisier 1981\] which determined that the distribution of the FWHM of absorbing features peaks at 1.8 km s-1.

In order to increase the sensitivity to any difference feature we reduced the velocity resolution of the data from 0.25 to 1.0 km s-1 to better match the observed linewidths. Figure 6 shows the difference between the spectra taken in 1998 March and 2000 August. The significance of the points has been computed assuming a receiver temperature of 22 K, a sky temperature of 14 K and the known contribution of the H i in the individual channels combined with the integration time on source. Contours are shown at the 2, 3 and 4-$`\sigma `$ levels. Only one data point has a significance greater than 3-$`\sigma `$ and the statistics are consistent with a Gaussian noise distribution. We therefore conclude that there are no significant changes in the H i absorption to any of the 12 individual clouds at a 2-$`\sigma `$ level of 0.022 (on the line). In terms of the difference spectrum, this sensitivity is better than 5 of the 6 pulsars in the Frail et al. (1994) survey and roughly on a par with the sensitivity achieved for PSR B1929+10.

Two other absorption spectra for this pulsar exist at a velocity resolution of $``$2–3 km s-1 taken in 1975 (Figure 8 in Ables & Manchester 1976) and 1988 (Figure 10 in Frail et al. 1991). We have averaged our data to a similar resolution. Visual inspection of the three spectra shows that they are very similar in the number and depth of individual features, with the only possible difference being in the absorption feature at 4 km s-1.

### 5.4 PSR B1557–50

This pulsar is different to the other three under consideration here in that it is considerably weaker. It was therefore observed with 2.0 km s-1 velocity resolution to match the observations made in 1994. The resultant absorption spectrum from the 2000 data is shown in Figure 7 and can be compared with the 1994 data as shown in Figure 1 from Johnston et al. (2001).

The difference spectrum between the two data sets are shown is Figure 8. Very few points lie outside the 2-$`\sigma `$ contours as expected from Gaussian noise. However, we note that exactly at the location of the absorption feature against the cold cloud (at –110 km s-1) there are two consecutive outliers. These show that the optical depth in 1994 was similar to that in 2000 August except the line has become significantly narrower over the 6 year time span.

H i absorption measurements towards this pulsar were carried out in the late 1970s by Ables & Manchester (1976) and Manchester et al. (1981). Deshpande et al. (1992) compared these two spectra and noted a possible change in the absorption profile near –40 km s-1. The velocity resolution of the earlier observations is a factor of 4 worse than our 1994 and 2000 observations. We therefore box-car averaged our data to achieve a similar resolution to the Manchester et al. (1981) observations and compare both in Figure 9. To produce the difference plot we assume the sensitivity was a factor of 3 worse in the Manchester et al. (1981) observations (the system temperature is a factor of 2 higher and the observation time a factor 2.5 less). Differences are clearly apparent. The deep absorption feature at –110 km s-1 is not present in the earlier observations and there are additional differences in both the features at –80 and –40 km s-1.

## 6 Discussion

No significant differences were found in the H i absorption spectra of PSRs B0736–40, B1451–68 or B1641–45 over a 2.5 yr timescale. At full velocity resolution, our difference spectra have rms levels which are not as good as those achieved by Frail et al. (1994) and examination of their spectra show that the differences they detected were below our sensitivity limit. However, smoothing the data to a resolution equivalent to that of the measured line widths ($``$1.0 km s-1) brings us within a factor of 2 in sensitivity for PSRs B0736–40 and B1451–68. For PSR B1641–45 our sensitivity level is lower than any of the differences claimed by Frail et al. (1994) and our non-detection is therefore a significant result. The upper limit we can put on H i column density variations to each of the 12 individual absorbing features along the line of sight to this pulsar, assuming a spin temperature of 50 K, is $`10^{19}`$ cm-2. This is significantly less than the changes seen in VLBI H i and molecular line observations and comparable to the smallest changes seen in pulsar absorption spectra.

We also raise some issues concerning the interpretation of the H i spectra in Frail et al. (1994). First, the difference spectra (see Fig. 3 in their paper) are shown as absolute differences rather than centered at zero; this has an effect on the noise statistics. Secondly, it is clear that because the temperature increases on the H i line so does the noise and although they state in the text that this is taken into account the lack of significance contours on the figure make it difficult to interpret. For PSR B0540+23, for example, the noise must be at least a factor of 3 higher on the line (emission temperature of 120 K) compared to off the line. The observed difference spectra are indeed significantly noisier under the line but this is interpreted as real differences in the discussion. For PSR B1929+10, variations against the baseline seem just as large as against the line but this point is not discussed. Finally, it appears as if the pulsars with the best sensitivity in turn show the smallest difference variations. We note in mitigation, however, that their technique of using the equivalent width of the lines is more robust than the simple difference figures.

As discussed in Johnston et al. (2001), the H i absorption feature at –110 km s-1 in PSR B1557–50 is rather unusual. It has an apparent H i emission temperature of only 20 K, and one does not expect to see significant optical depth against such features \[Frail & Weisberg 1990\]. However, its line width is not particularly narrow; the FWHM of the line is $``$3 km s-1, indicative of a much warmer object if interpreted as thermal broadening. It therefore seems likely that the cloud has a spin temperature in the range 50–100 K but that beam dilution causes a lower temperature to be observed. At this spin temperature and an equivalent width of $``$3 km s-1 the column density of neutral gas is $``$4$`\times `$1020 cm-2. We can make some estimate of the size of the absorbing feature because the line-of-sight to the pulsar did not go through the cloud in 1980, did so in 1994 and appears to be weakening again in 2000. Therefore the pulsar takes roughly 12 years to cross the cloud. The absorption feature is located at 6.4 kpc and the pulsar located beyond this, although the dispersion measure derived distance would suggest that the cloud-pulsar distance is likely small. We therefore ignore geometrical effects. Assuming a velocity of 400 km s-1 for the pulsar (likely correct within a factor of 2) the pulsar then moves 1000 AU in that time. Assuming the cloud is spherical, this yields a density of $`2.6\times `$104 cm-3. This is similar to the values obtained from other observations as outlined in Section 1. Deshpande (2000), however, has shown that these results can instead be interpreted as much smaller density variations on larger scales when all contributing scales are taken into account, rather than simply the transverse scale. In his picture, it is not surprising that the pulsar with the longest time interval shows the largest variations in optical depth - indeed one expects that as the time interval increases, larger and larger deviations in optical depth should eventually be detected. The non-detection of optical depth variations at the $`<0.2`$ level in the three pulsars with a 2.5 yr time interval are also consistent with his derived structure function.

## 7 Conclusions

Although overwhelming evidence exists for small-scale fluctuations in the interstellar medium, observations of three southern pulsars over a 2.5 yr time span have failed to reveal any significant differences in their H i absorption spectra. The overall sensitivity of our high resolution observations is somewhat less than that of Frail et al. (1994), but we have correctly handled the variation in noise level across the H i emission. After smoothing the data to a velocity resolution of 1.0 km s-1, the upper limit of $`10^{19}`$ cm-2 in the change in column density of the cold, neutral gas towards PSR B1641–45 is significantly less than changes seen in the direction of other pulsars. H i absorption spectra of PSR B1557–50 taken in 1994 and 2000 clearly show differences and these are even more pronounced when comparison with spectra taken in the late 1970s is made. The differences are most evident in a high optical depth feature against an emission feature with an apparent temperature of only 20 K.

## Acknowledgments

We thank J. Weisberg for encouraging discussions and D. Mitra for helpful comments on the text. The Australia Telescope is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by the CSIRO.