A systematic approach to multiphysics extensions of finite-element-based micromagnetic simulations: Nmag

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Description/Abstract

Extensions of the basic micromagnetic model that include effects such as spin-current interaction, diffusion of thermal energy or anisotropic magnetoresistance are often studied by performing simulations that use case-specific ad-hoc extensions of widely used software packages such as OOMMF or Magpar. We present the novel software framework 'Nmag' that handles specifications of micromagnetic systems at a sufficiently abstract level to enable users with little programming experience to automatically translate a description of a large class of dynamical multifield equations plus a description of the system's geometry into a working simulation. Conceptually, this is a step towards a higher-level abstract notation for classical multifield mutliphysics simulations, similar to the change from assembly language to a higher level human-and-machine-readable formula notation for mathematical terms (FORTRAN) half a century ago. We demonstrate the capability of this appraoch through two ecamples, showing 1) a reduced dimensionality model coupling two copies of the micromagnetic sector and 2) the computation of a spatial current density distribution for anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). For cross-wise validation purposes, we also show how Nmag compares to the OOMMF and Magpar packages on a selected micromagnetic toy system. We furthermore, briefly discuss the limiations of our framework and related conceptual questions.