Molecular-Field Calculation of the Magnetic Structure in Erbium

A molecular-field calculation of the magnetic configurations in Er is found to reproduce the neutron diffraction results of the three different magnetic phases and to give a reasonable fit to the magnetization data at 4.2K. The two-ion coupling is considered to be described by the inter-planar coupling parameters deduced from the dispersion of the spin waves in the low temperature conical phases. The four (effective) crystal-field parameters are determined by the fit to the experimental data. Projecting the magnetic moments present in the intermediate phase of Er (18-52.4K) to a common origin the calculations indicate that the hodograph of the moments is very close to an ellipse that has its major axis parallel to the c-axis.