English

Multiferroic collinear antiferromagnet with hidden altermagnetic split

Materials Science 2026-02-03 v2

Abstract

Altermagnets exhibit nonrelativistic spin splitting due to the breaking of time-reversal symmetry and have been garnering significant attention as promising materials for spintronic applications. In contrast, conventional antiferromagnets without spin splitting seem not to have any symmetry breaking and have drawn less attention. However, we show that conventional antiferromagnets with a nonzero propagation vector (Q vector) bring about nontrivial symmetry breakings. The incompatibility between the Q vector and nonsymmorphic symmetry leads to macroscopic symmetry breaking without lifting spin degeneracy. Moreover, the hidden altermagnetic spin splitting in the electronic structure gives rise to various emergent responses. To examine our prediction, we perform first-principles calculations for MnS2 and investigate its multiferroic properties, such as nonlinear transport and optical activity. Our findings reveal unique properties in conventional antiferromagnets, providing another perspective for designing spintronic materials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.20128,
  title  = {Multiferroic collinear antiferromagnet with hidden altermagnetic split},
  author = {Jin Matsuda and Hikaru Watanabe and Ryotaro Arita},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.20128},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:50:37.115Z