- Letter
High-harmonic spin-current signatures of altermagnetic spin-group symmetry
Phys. Rev. B 114, L200403 – Published 19 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1vc6-c7rs
Abstract
Spin point groups classify magnetic phases in the weak spin-orbit coupling regime and characterize the static properties of altermagnetic phases, but their dynamical consequences remain largely unexplored. Here, we derive selection rules for high-harmonic generation of charge and spin currents by extending dynamical symmetry to include spin point-group operations. Since spin currents transform under both real- and spin-space operations, whereas charge currents transform only under real-space operations, spin-current selection rules can reveal magnetic information that is inaccessible to charge-current harmonics. In a minimal altermagnetic model, an axis-aligned linearly polarized drive is nondiagnostic for distinguishing ferromagnetic and altermagnetic phases, although the antiferromagnetic phase is distinguished by the absence of the corresponding spin-current harmonics. A diagonal linearly polarized drive distinguishes the three spin-point-group phases within the weak-coupling spin-group description, whereas a single-helicity circularly polarized drive provides a sharper spin-current-harmonic criterion for distinguishing them from magnetic-point-group mimics. These results establish spin-current harmonics as a dynamical probe of spin-group symmetry. Finite spin-orbit coupling lifts these zeros only perturbatively: the forbidden harmonics acquire amplitudes analytic in the coupling strength, so that the fingerprint becomes a small same-order helicity contrast, below at low orders for couplings up to of the hopping in our model.