Effect of damping on the laser induced ultrafast switching in rare earth-transition metal alloys

In this paper, we present simulations of thermally induced magnetic switching in ferrimagnetic systems performed with a Landau-Lifshitz-Bloch (LLB) equation for damping constant in a wide range of values. We have systematically studied the GdFeCo ferrimagnet with various concentrations of Gd and compared for some values of parameters the LLB results with atomistic simulations. The agreement is remarkably good, which shows that the dynamics described by the ferrimagnetic LLB is a reasonable approximation of this complex physical phenomenon. As an important element, we show that the LLB is able to also describe the intermediate formation of a ferromagnetic state which seems to be essential to understand laser induced ultrafast switching. The study reveals the fundamental role of damping during the switching process.