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  • Open Access

Monopoles, Dirac strings, and magnetic noise in model spin ice

A. Huster Zapke1,2 and P. C. W. Holdsworth1,3,*

  • *Contact author: peter.holdsworth@ens-lyon.fr
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033284 – Published 25 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/v7zq-21j8

Abstract

Using the Dirac string formalism for monopoles, we expose an extensive analogy between magnetic monopole excitations in the dumbbell model of spin ice and those of the vacuum. In both cases, the Dirac strings are defined in the space-time of monopole trajectories, which are simulated in spin ice using transition graphs between initial and final configurations. The Stanford experiment for Dirac monopole detection is reconstructed in spin ice using the fragmentation procedure. The setup is then extended to simulate magnetic noise experiments using stochastic dynamics. It is shown that the noise from the monopoles and their constraining strings can be separated and that the correlated signal over long times comes largely from the constraining strings rather than from the monopoles themselves.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033284– Published 25 September, 2025
  • Received 14 May 2025
  • Accepted 5 August 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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