Low-temperature cycling of isothermal and anhysteretic remanence: microcoercivity and magnetic memory

This paper reports low-temperature cycling (LTC) through the Verwey transition of anhysteretic remanence (ARM), partial ARMs and partially demagnetised saturation isothermal remanence (SIRM) induced at room temperature in pseudo-single-domain and multidomain (MD) magnetite. The remanences were cooled in zero field to 50 K and then heated back to room temperature. By inducing partial ARMs over different field ranges and by partially alternating field demagnetising SIRMs, it was possible to isolate both low-coercive-force and high-coercive-force fractions of remanence. On cooling through the Verwey transition, a sharp increase in the remanence was observed. The relative size of the jump increased as the high-coercive-force fraction was increasingly isolated. This behaviour is interpreted as being due to both an increase in the single-domain/multidomain threshold size on cooling through the Verwey transition and to the reduction or elimination of closure domains in the low-temperature phase. In addition, the memory ratio, i.e. the fraction of remanence remaining after LTC divided by the initial remanence, was found to be higher for the high-coercive-force fraction than the low-coercive-force fraction. In our interpretation, the high-coercivity fraction behaviour is associated with reversible domain re-organisation effects, whilst the low-coercive force fraction’s behaviour is associated with irreversible domain re-organisation and (de-)nucleation processes. Due to the decrease in magnetocrystalline anisotropy on cooling to the Verwey transition, the high-coercive-force fraction is likely to be magnetoelastically controlled. Thus, a rock displaying high-coercive-force behaviour is likely to carry a palaeomagnetically meaningful remanence with high unblocking temperatures. In addition, LTC analysis can be used to identify the domain state dominating the natural remanence in magnetite-bearing rocks.