English

Orbital Accumulation Induced by Chiral Phonons

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2025-11-21 v2 Materials Science

Abstract

We theoretically investigate orbital accumulation driven by chiral phonons via orbital-dependent electron-lattice coupling. We derive a formula for the orbital accumulation induced by classical lattice dynamics or nonequilibrium phonons, using the Berry curvature, linear response theory, and the nonequilibrium Green's function method. We show that chiral phonons primarily couple to orbital quadrupole moments and that static orbital dipole accumulation can be generated in the second-order of lattice displacement. Our study provides a useful method for generating orbital accumulation without using spin-orbit interactions and suggests a strategy to boost its magnitude by harnessing band structure hot spots associated with orbital degeneracy.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.11272,
  title  = {Orbital Accumulation Induced by Chiral Phonons},
  author = {Tetsuya Sato and Takeo Kato and Aurelien Manchon},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.11272},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

20 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:37:26.694Z