Lecture 20: Spin Waves are the Goldstone Modes of Ferromagnets

Ferromagnets spontaneously break a continuous symmetry -- that is, when the net magnetization develops, it must choose a particular direction to point. But raise the temperature to disorder this, then lower it again, and -- surprise! -- the magnetization will now form in a different direction. You already know that when a continuous symmetry (here, the rotational symmetry) is broken, the system has Goldstone modes. (See Lectures 1 and 3.) The Goldstone modes of a ferromagnet are called spin waves. These are waves of precession of the magnetic moments.

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Lecture 20: Spin Waves are the Goldstone Modes of Ferromagnets is an episode from Solid State Physics by Prof. Carlson.

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This episode was published on Apr 4, 2006.

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