Abstract
We consider the effect of an in-plane current on the magnetization dynamics of a quasi-two-dimensional spin-orbit coupled nanoscale itinerant ferromagnet. By solving the appropriate kinetic equation for an itinerant electron ferromagnet, we show that Rashba spin-orbit interaction provides transport currents with a switching action, as observed in a recent experiment (I. M.
Miron et al., Nature 476, 189 (2011)). The dependence of the effective switching field on the magnitude and direction of an external magnetic field in our theory agrees well with experiment.
