The influence of uniaxial anisotropy and the dipole interaction on thedirection of the magnetization of ultra-thin ferromagnetic films in theground-state is studied. The ground-state energy can be expressed in terms ofanisotropy constants which are calculated in detail as function of the systemparameters and the film thickness. In particular non-collinear spinarrangements are taken into account. Conditions for the appearance of a spinreorientation transition are given and analytic results for the width of thecanted phase and its shift in applied magnetic fields associated with thistransition are derived.
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