  Motivated by the need to understand current-induced magnetization dynamics at
the nanoscale, we have developed a formalism, within the framework of Keldysh
Green function approach, to study the current-induced dynamics of a
ferromagnetic (FM) nanoisland overlayer on a spin-orbit-coupling (SOC) Rashba
plane. In contrast to the commonly employed classical micromagnetic LLG
simulations the magnetic moments of the FM are treated {\it quantum
mechanically}. We obtain the density matrix of the whole system consisting of
conduction electrons entangled with the local magnetic moments and calculate
the effective damping rate of the FM. We investigate two opposite limiting
regimes of FM dynamics: (1) The precessional regime where the magnetic
anisotropy energy (MAE) and precessional frequency are smaller than the
exchange interactions, and (2) The local spin-flip regime where the MAE and
precessional frequency are comparable to the exchange interactions. In the
former case, we show that due to the finite size of the FM domain, the
\textquotedblleft Gilbert damping\textquotedblright does not diverge in the
ballistic electron transport regime, in sharp contrast to Kambersky's breathing
Fermi surface theory for damping in metallic FMs. In the latter case, we show
that above a critical bias the excited conduction electrons can switch the
local spin moments resulting in demagnetization and reversal of the
magnetization. Furthermore, our calculations show that the bias-induced
antidamping efficiency in the local spin-flip regime is much higher than that
in the rotational excitation regime.
