The origin of increase of damping in transition metals with rare earth impurities

The damping due to rare earth impurities in transition metals is discussed in the low concentration limit. It is shown that the increase in damping is mainly due to the coupling of the orbital moments of the rare earth impurities and the conduction $p$-electrons. It is shown that an itinerant picture for the host transition ions is needed to reproduce the observed dependence of the damping on the total angular moment of the rare earths.