Charged magnons on the surface of a topological insulator

TL;DR

This paper investigates the interaction between Dirac electrons on a topological insulator surface and localized spins, revealing novel bound states called Jackiw-Rebbi-Magnons and their hybridization with electronic states, leading to quantum phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of Jackiw-Rebbi-Magnons as delocalized spin wave excitations binding electronic states and explores their signatures and phase transitions in topological insulator systems.

Findings

Identification of Jackiw-Rebbi-Magnons as bound states

Hybridization of magnons with electronic states forming polaritons

Observation of a quantum phase transition related to polariton energies

Abstract

We study a system of two-dimensional Dirac electrons (as is realized on the surface of a 3D topological insulator) coupled to an array of localized spins. The spins are coupled ferromagnetically to each other, forming an ordered ground state with low-energy spin-wave excitations (magnons). The Dirac electrons couple to the spins through a spin-dependent effective Zeeman field. The out-of-plane effective Zeeman field therefore serves as a Dirac mass that gaps the electronic spectrum. Once a spin is flipped, it creates a surrounding domain in which the sign of the Dirac mass is opposite to that of the rest of the sample. Therefore, an electronic bound state appears on the domain wall, as predicted by Jackiw and Rebbi. However, in a quantum magnet, a localized spin flip does not produce an eigenstate. Instead, the eigenstates correspond to delocalized spin waves (magnons). As in the case of the single flipped spin, the delocalized magnon also binds an in-gap electronic state. We name this excitation a `Jackiw-Rebbi-Magnon' (JRM) and study its signature in the dynamic spin susceptibility. When the sample is tunnel-coupled to an electronic reservoir, a magnon produced in a system without any electrons hybridizes with a JRM (which binds a single electron), producing magnon-JRM polaritons. For such a system, we identify a quantum phase transition when the magnon-JRM polariton energy falls below that of the fully polarized ferromagnetic ground state.