Many-spin effects and tunneling properties of magnetic molecules

Spin tunneling in molecular magnets has attracted much attention, however theoretical considerations of this phenomenon up to now have not taken into account the many-spin nature of molecular magnets. We present, to our knowledge, the first successful attempt of a realistic calculation of tunneling splittings for Mn-12 molecules, thus achieving a quantitatively accurate many-spin description of a real molecular magnet in the energy interval ranging from about 100 K down to 10(-12) K. Comparison with the results of the standard single-spin model shows that many-spin effects affect the tunneling splittings considerably. The values of ground state splitting given by single-spin and many-spin models differ from each other by a factor of 5. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)66308-9].