A Model for the Occurrence of Lock-ins in Holmium in c-axis Magnetic Fields

Abstract

We introduce a novel interpretation of the sequence of commensurate lock-ins of the spiral wave vector, tau, observed in the helimagnetic phase of holmium in the presence of c-axis magnetic fields. This is the first successful model for the prediction of these lock-ins. We show that a model which combines a spin-slip model with an assumption concerning the spin structure along the c-axis in finite size ``domains'', yields excellent predictions when the energetics of this system with an applied c-axis magnetic field are considered.