Multiple-$Q$ magnetic orders in Rashba-Dresselhaus metals
Abstract
We study magnetic textures realized in noncentrosymmetric Kondo lattice models, in which localized magnetic moments weakly interact with itinerant electrons subject to Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings. By virtue of state-of-the-art numerical simulations as well as variational calculations, we uncover versatile multiple- orderings under zero magnetic field, which are found to originate in the instabilities of the Fermi surface whose spin degeneracy is lifted by the spin-orbit couplings. In the case with equally-strong Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings, which is known to realize a persistent spin helix in semiconductor quantum wells, we discover a sextuple- magnetic ordering with a checkerboard-like spatial pattern of the spin scalar chirality. In the presence of either Rashba or Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling, we find out another multiple- ordering, which is distinct from Skyrmion crystals discussed under the same symmetry. Our results indicate that the cooperation of the spin-charge and spin-orbit couplings brings about richer magnetic textures than those studied within effective spin models. The situations would be experimentally realized, e.g., in noncentrosymmetric heavy-fermion compounds and heterostructures of spin-orbit coupled metals and magnetic insulators.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1809.07582,
title = {Multiple-$Q$ magnetic orders in Rashba-Dresselhaus metals},
author = {Ken N. Okada and Yasuyuki Kato and Yukitoshi Motome},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.07582},
year = {2018}
}