1201.3523 (Ran Cheng et al.)

Electron Dynamics in Slowly Varying Antiferromagnetic Texture    [PDF]

Ran Cheng, Qian Niu

Effective dynamics of conduction electrons in antiferromagnetic (AFM) materials with slowly varying spin texture is developed via non-Abelian Berry phase theory. Quite different from the ferromagnetic (FM) case, the electron spin does not follow the local moments even in the adiabatic limit because of an inherent degeneracy of the energy bands. It is found that the spin dynamics is coupled to the orbital dynamics, and the latter is affected by two kinds of gauge fields. While one of them is the non-Abelian generalization of what has been discovered in FM systems, the other leads to an anomalous velocity that has no FM counterpart. Two examples are provided to illustrate the distinctive spin dynamics of a conduction electron in AFM textures.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.3523