Enhanced second-order Gauss-Seidel projection methods for the Landau-Lifshitz equation

Abstract: The dynamics of magnetization in ferromagnetic materials are modeled by the Landau-Lifshitz equation, which presents significant challenges due to its inherent nonlinearity and non-convex constraint. These complexities necessitate efficient numerical methods for micromagnetics simulations. The Gauss-Seidel Projection Method (GSPM), first introduced in 2001, is among the most efficient techniques currently available. However, existing GSPMs are limited to first-order accuracy. This paper introduces two novel second-order accurate GSPMs based on a combination of the biharmonic equation and the second-order backward differentiation formula, achieving computational complexity comparable to that of solving the scalar biharmonic equation implicitly. The first proposed method achieves unconditional stability through Gauss-Seidel updates, while the second method exhibits conditional stability with a Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy constant of 0.25. Through consistency analysis and numerical experiments, we demonstrate the efficacy and reliability of these methods. Notably, the first method displays unconditional stability in micromagnetics simulations, even when the stray field is updated only once per time step.