Magnetic moment softening and domain wall resistance in Ni nanowires

We perform ab initio calculations of the electronic structure and conductance of atomic-size Ni nanowires with domain walls only a few atomic lattice constants wide. We show that the hybridization between noncollinear spin states leads to a reduction of the magnetic moments in the domain wall resulting in the enhancement of the domain wall resistance. Experimental studies of the magnetic moment softening may be feasible with modern techniques such as scanning tunneling spectroscopy.