Antichiral Ferromagnetism

TL;DR

This paper predicts a new magnetic order called antichiral ferromagnetism, characterized by helix-like textures and stabilized excitations, using symmetry analysis and numerical methods.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of antichiral ferromagnetism and demonstrates its emergence in crystals with tetrahedral symmetry, expanding understanding of magnetic orders.

Findings

Prediction of antichiral ferromagnetism as a new magnetic order.

Identification of helix-like magnetic textures with opposite chiralities.

Stabilization of antichiral domains and skyrmions.

Abstract

Here by combining a symmetry-based analysis with numerical computations we predict a new kind of magnetic ordering - antichiral ferromagnetism. The relationship between chiral and antichiral magnetic order is conceptually similar to the relationship between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic order. Without loss of generality, we focus our investigation on crystals with full tetrahedral symmetry where chiral interaction terms - Lifshitz invariants - are forbidden by symmetry. However, we demonstrate that leading chirality-related term leads to nontrivial smooth magnetic textures in the form of helix-like segments of alternating opposite chiralities. The unconventional order manifests itself beyond the ground state by stabilizing excitations such as domains and skyrmions in an antichiral form.