We numerically study the thermal stability properties of computer memorystorage realized by a magnetic ellipse. In the case of practical magneticrandom-access memory devices, the bit can form a spin texture during switchingevents. To study the energy barrier for thermally-induced switching, we developa variational procedure to force the bit to traverse a smooth path throughconfiguration space between the points of stability. We identify texturedconfigurations realizing domain-wall propagation, which may have an energybarrier less than that of the corresponding monodomain model. We contrast theemergence of such micromagnetic effects in thermal versus field-inducedswitching.
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