Texture-induced spin-orbit coupling and skyrmion-electron bound states in a N茅el antiferromagnet

We derive an effective-mass electron Hamiltonian for a Néel antiferromagnet in the presence of a smooth texture of the staggered magnetization. For certain locations of the electron band extrema, the texture produces a peculiar and anomalously strong spin-orbit coupling of the scale  魔v/L, with v the Fermi velocity and L the characteristic length scale of the texture. For a skyrmion texture, this coupling generates electron bound states, whose energy scale is given by the gap Δ in the electron spectrum.

Short Bio

Revaz Ramazashvili, PhD 1998 (Rutgers University). Since 2009, CNRS researcher at the Theoretical Physics Laboratory in Toulouse, France.