Vortex behavior near a spin vacancy in 2D XY-magnets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how vortices in 2D XY-magnets interact with nonmagnetic impurities, using simulations and analytical methods to reveal vortex trapping and attraction phenomena.

Contribution

It provides new insights into vortex-impurity interactions in 2D XY-magnets through combined simulation and analytical approaches.

Findings

Vortices are attracted to and trapped by impurities.

Impurities create an attractive potential for vortices.

Vortices are minimally disturbed by impurities, supporting the trapping mechanism.

Abstract

The dynamical behavior of anisotropic two dimensional Heisenberg models is still a matter of controversy. The existence of a central peak at all temperatures and a rich structure of magnon peaks are not yet understood. It seems that the central peaks are related, in some way, to structures like vortices. In order to contribute to the discussion of the dynamical behavior of the model we use Monte Carlo and spin dynamics simulations as well analytical calculations to study the behavior of vortices in the presence of nonmagnetic impurities. Our simulations show that vortices are attracted and trapped by the impurities. Using this result we show that if we suppose that vortices are not very much disturbed by the presence of the impurities, then they work as an attractive potential to the vortices explaining the observed behavior in our simulations.