Under a magnetic field along its axis, domain wall motion in a uniaxial nanowire is much slower than in the fully anisotropic case, typically by several orders of magnitude (the square of the dimensionless Gilbert damping parameter). However, with the addition of a magnetic field transverse to the wire, this behaviour is dramatically reversed; up to a critical field strength, analogous to the Walker breakdown field, domain walls in a uniaxial wire propagate faster than in a fully anisotropic wire (without transverse field). Beyond this critical field strength, precessional motion sets in, and the mean velocity decreases. Our results are based on leading-order analytic calculations of the velocity and critical field as well as numerical solutions of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation.

6 pages, 4 figures