In physics, Larmor precession (named after Joseph Larmor) is the precession of the magnetic moment of an object about an external magnetic field. Objects with a magnetic moment also have angular momentum and effective internal electric current proportional to their angular momentum; these include electrons, protons, other fermions, many atomic and nuclear systems, as well as classical macroscopic systems. The external magnetic field exerts a torque on the magnetic moment,
where is the torque, is the magnetic dipole moment, is the angular momentum vector, is the external magnetic field, symbolizes the cross product, and is the gyromagnetic ratio which gives the proportionality constant between the magnetic moment and the angular momentum. The phenomenon is similar to the precession of a tilted classical gyroscope in an external torque-exerting gravitational field.