Michele Ruggeri

Carl-Martin Pfeiler, Michele Ruggeri, Bernhard Stiftner et al.

We present our open-source Python module Commics for the study of the magnetization dynamics in ferromagnetic materials via micromagnetic simulations. It implements state-of-the-art unconditionally convergent finite element methods for the numerical integration of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. The implementation is based on the multiphysics finite element software Netgen/NGSolve. The simulation scripts are written in Python, which leads to very readable code and direct access to extensive post-processing. Together with documentation and example scripts, the code is freely available on GitLab.

Florian Bruckner, Michael Feischl, Thomas Führer et al.

Various applications ranging from spintronic devices, giant magnetoresistance sensors, and magnetic storage devices, include magnetic parts on very different length scales. Since the consideration of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation (LLG) constrains the maximum element size to the exchange length within the media, it is numerically not attractive to simulate macroscopic parts with this approach. On the other hand, the magnetostatic Maxwell equations do not constrain the element size, but cannot describe the short-range exchange interaction accurately. A combination of both methods allows to describe magnetic domains within the micromagnetic regime by use of LLG and also considers the macroscopic parts by a non-linear material law using the Maxwell equations. In our work, we prove that under certain assumptions on the non-linear material law, this multiscale version of LLG admits weak solutions. Our proof is constructive in the sense that we provide a linear-implicit numerical integrator for the multiscale model such that the numerically computable finite element solutions admit weak $H^1$-convergence (at least for a subsequence) towards a weak solution.

Giovanni Di Fratta, Carl-Martin Pfeiler, Dirk Praetorius et al.

Combining ideas from [Alouges et al. (Numer. Math., 128, 2014)] and [Praetorius et al. (Comput. Math. Appl., 2017)], we propose a numerical algorithm for the integration of the nonlinear and time-dependent Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation which is unconditionally convergent, formally (almost) second-order in time, and requires only the solution of one linear system per time-step. Only the exchange contribution is integrated implicitly in time, while the lower-order contributions like the computationally expensive stray field are treated explicitly in time. Then, we extend the scheme to the coupled system of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation with the eddy current approximation of Maxwell equations (ELLG). Unlike existing schemes for this system, the new integrator is unconditionally convergent, (almost) second-order in time, and requires only the solution of two linear systems per time-step.

Gino Hrkac, Carl-Martin Pfeiler, Dirk Praetorius et al.

We consider the numerical approximation of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation, which describes the dynamics of the magnetization in ferromagnetic materials. In addition to the classical micromagnetic contributions, the energy comprises the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which is the most important ingredient for the enucleation and the stabilization of chiral magnetic skyrmions. We propose and analyze three tangent plane integrators, for which we prove (unconditional) convergence of the finite element solutions towards a weak solution of the problem. The analysis is constructive and also establishes existence of weak solutions. Numerical experiments demonstrate the applicability of the methods for the simulation of practically relevant problem sizes.

Dirk Praetorius, Michele Ruggeri, Bernhard Stiftner

Based on lowest-order finite elements in space, we consider the numerical integration of the Landau-Lifschitz-Gilbert equation (LLG). The dynamics of LLG is driven by the so-called effective field which usually consists of the exchange field, the external field, and lower-order contributions such as the stray field. The latter requires the solution of an additional partial differential equation in full space. Following Bartels and Prohl (2006) (Convergence of an implicit finite element method for the Landau-Lifschitz-Gilbert equation. SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 44), we employ the implicit midpoint rule to treat the exchange field. However, in order to treat the lower-order terms effectively, we combine the midpoint rule with an explicit Adams-Bashforth scheme. The resulting integrator is formally of second-order in time, and we prove unconditional convergence towards a weak solution of LLG. Numerical experiments underpin the theoretical findings.

Alex Bespalov, Dirk Praetorius, Leonardo Rocchi et al.

We propose and analyze novel adaptive algorithms for the numerical solution of elliptic partial differential equations with parametric uncertainty. Four different marking strategies are employed for refinement of stochastic Galerkin finite element approximations. The algorithms are driven by the energy error reduction estimates derived from two-level a posteriori error indicators for spatial approximations and hierarchical a posteriori error indicators for parametric approximations. The focus of this work is on the mathematical foundation of the adaptive algorithms in the sense of rigorous convergence analysis. In particular, we prove that the proposed algorithms drive the underlying energy error estimates to zero.

Alex Bespalov, Dirk Praetorius, Leonardo Rocchi et al.

We use the ideas of goal-oriented error estimation and adaptivity to design and implement an efficient adaptive algorithm for approximating linear quantities of interest derived from solutions to elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs) with parametric or uncertain inputs. In the algorithm, the stochastic Galerkin finite element method (sGFEM) is used to approximate the solutions to primal and dual problems that depend on a countably infinite number of uncertain parameters. Adaptive refinement is guided by an innovative strategy that combines the error reduction indicators computed for spatial and parametric components of the primal and dual solutions. The key theoretical ingredient is a novel two-level a posteriori estimate of the energy error in sGFEM approximations. We prove that this error estimate is reliable and efficient. The effectiveness of the goal-oriented error estimation strategy and the performance of the goal-oriented adaptive algorithm are tested numerically for three representative model problems with parametric coefficients and for three quantities of interest (including the approximation of pointwise values).

Johannes Kraus, Carl-Martin Pfeiler, Dirk Praetorius et al.

The tangent plane scheme is a time-marching scheme for the numerical solution of the nonlinear parabolic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation (LLG), which describes the time evolution of ferromagnetic configurations. Exploiting the geometric structure of LLG, the tangent plane scheme requires only the solution of one linear variational form per time-step, which is posed in the discrete tangent space determined by the nodal values of the current magnetization. We develop an effective solution strategy for the arising constrained linear systems, which is based on appropriate Householder reflections. We derive possible preconditioners, which are (essentially) independent of the time-step, and prove that the preconditioned GMRES algorithm leads to linear convergence. Numerical experiments underpin the theoretical findings.

Martin Kružík, Hywel Normington, Michele Ruggeri

We consider the numerical approximation of a nonlinear system of partial differential equations modeling magnetostriction in the small-strain regime consisting of the Landau--Lifshitz--Gilbert equation for the magnetization and the conservation of linear momentum law for the displacement. We propose a fully discrete numerical scheme based on first-order finite elements for the spatial discretization. The time discretization employs a combination of the classical Newmark-$β$ scheme for the displacement and the midpoint scheme for the magnetization, applied in a decoupled fashion. The resulting method is fully linear and formally of second order in time. We derive the discrete energy law satisfied by the approximations and prove the stability of the scheme. Finally, we assess the performance of the proposed method in a collection of numerical experiments.