Inhomogeneous Gilbert damping from impurities and electron-electron interactions

E. M. Hankiewicz, G. Vignale, Y. Tserkovnyak

Published 2008-04-04, updated 2008-08-09Version 2

We present a unified theory of magnetic damping in itinerant electron ferromagnets at order $q^2$ including electron-electron interactions and disorder scattering. We show that the Gilbert damping coefficient can be expressed in terms of the spin conductivity, leading to a Matthiessen-type formula in which disorder and interaction contributions are additive. In a weak ferromagnet regime, electron-electron interactions lead to a strong enhancement of the Gilbert damping.