Prof. Sauermann

Taking ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic materials on a mesoscopic or micromagnetic level, spatio-temporal mechanisms of pattern formation in externally driven magnets were investigated. The group used the dissipative Landau-Lifshitz equation as the fundamental equation of motion. The aim was to understand the complex global domain structures which are observed experimentally, as well as to study their basic ingredients such as domain walls, solitary states, fronts, etc.

The group also approached the restricted class of problems consisting mainly of the occurrence of dynamical instabilities in an alternative manner. Starting off from first principles, i.e. from the microscopic quantum mechanical equations of motion, the group then used quantum statistics. This provides an independent way of accessing these problems, as well as avoiding any sort of phenomenological assumptions.

In addition, the group compared their results with examples from hydrodynamics, nonlinear optics and chemistry, and in this manner defined and clarified the position of magnetically ordered solids among these different pattern forming systems.