Suppression of tunneling by interference in half-integer--spin particles
arXiv:cond-mat/9208012 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.69.3232
Abstract
Within a wide class of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems, quantum tunneling of magnetization direction is spin-parity dependent: it vanishes for magnetic particles with half-integer spin, but is allowed for integer spin. A coherent-state path integral calculation shows that this topological effect results from interference between tunneling paths.
14 pages (RevTeX), 2 postscript figures available upon request