Altermagnetic spin textures: Emergent electrodynamics, quantum geometry, and probes
Emergent electrodynamics arising from spatially and temporally varying magnetic textures provides a framework for spin control in quantum materials. While this principle is established for ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic textures, its consequences for altermagnets-magnetic orders with vanishing net magnetization but finite spin splitting-remain largely unexplored. In this work, we develop an effective low-energy theory of itinerant electrons coupled to smoothly varying altermagnetic spin textures. In the adiabatic regime, we show that altermagnetic textures generate additional emergent electromagnetic fields and quantum-geometric effects that are absent in conventional magnetic systems. These effects include emergent Zeeman fields that encode the structure of the altermagnetic order parameter, enabling local spin manipulation and a way to distinguish different altermagnetic orders. Moreover, we demonstrate a quantum metric-induced, spin-dependent electron lensing effect that provides a mechanism for spin-dependent transmissions and discuss the local admixture of effective odd-parity magnetic components. Our results suggest that textured altermagnets could serve as a versatile resource for spintronics functionalities and a probe of altermagnetism.
Authors
- Constantin Schrade
- Mathias S. Scheurer
Institutions
- University of Stuttgart (DE)
- Louisiana State University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2026-09-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeh1411
- Primary Topic
- Magnetic properties of thin films
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- European Research Council