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  • Open Access

Color symmetry and altermagneticlike spin textures in noncollinear antiferromagnets

Paolo G. Radaelli*

Gautam Gurung†

  • *Contact author: p.g.radaelli@physics.ox.ac.uk
  • †Contact author: gautam.gurung@trinity.ox.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. B 112, 014431 – Published 17 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/r34k-xjpx

Abstract

We present a formalism based on color symmetry to analyze the momentum-space spin textures of noncollinear antiferromagnets. We show that, out of the spin textures allowed by the magnetic point group, one can extract a component that is invariant by general rotations in spin space, and can exist in the absence of spin-orbit coupling, in complete analogy to spin textures in altermagnets. We demonstrate this approach in the case of three complex, noncollinear magnets, Mn3Ir(Ge,Si), Pb2MnO4, and Mn3GaN. For Mn3GaN, we also show that the predictions of color-symmetry analysis are consistent with density functional theory calculations performed on the same system both with and without spin-orbit coupling.

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References (41)

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Phys. Rev. B 112, 014431– Published 17 July, 2025
  • Received 14 January 2025
  • Revised 28 May 2025
  • Accepted 12 June 2025
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