- Letter
Observing altermagnetism using polarized neutrons
Phys. Rev. B 111, L060405 – Published 10 February, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.L060405
Abstract
Altermagnets are collinear compensated magnets whose magnetic symmetries at zero spin-orbit coupling break spin degeneracy leading to spin-split electronic and magnonic bands that reflect an underlying multipolar order. When there is an approximate symmetry the magnons in altermagnets are split into equal and opposite chiral pairs. We show that in altermagnets polarized neutrons provide a means to detect the population of time-reversed domains and allow direct measurement of the magnon chirality anisotropy in momentum space—the central signature of the altermagnetic phase. We demonstrate this response to polarized neutrons in two candidate materials and MnTe and show that the presence of these chiralities is stable to small perturbations that break spin-rotation symmetry. This provides a magnonic analog of spin-polarized ARPES that has been used to discern altermagnetism in the electronic band structures of various candidate materials.