Dichroism as a probe for parity-breaking phases of spin-orbit coupled metals

Abstract

Recently, a general formalism was presented for gyrotropic, ferroelectric, and multipolar order in spin-orbit coupled metals induced by spin-spin interactions. Here, I point out that the resulting order parameters are equivalent to expectation values of operators that determine natural circular dichroic signals in optical and x-ray absorption. Some general properties of these operator equivalents and the resulting dichroisms are mentioned, and I list several material examples in this connection, including Weyl semimetals. The particular case of the tensor order in the pyrochlore superconductor Cd2Re2O7 is treated in more detail, including calculations of the x-ray absorption and circular dichroism at the O K edge.

v3 is a significant extension of the previous version, including a new table and a figure presenting ab initio results on Cd2Re2O7

References in corpus (8)

• Weyl semimetal phase in non-centrosymmetric transition metal monophosphides
• A ferroelectric-like structural transition in a metal
• Electron Correlation and Pairing States in Superconductors without Inversion Symmetry
• Parity-breaking phases of spin-orbit-coupled metals with gyrotropic, ferroelectric and multipolar orders
• Room-temperature chiral charge pumping in Dirac semimetals
• Theory of Kerr and Faraday rotations and linear dichroism in Topological Weyl Semimetals
• Optical gyrotropy from axion electrodynamics in momentum space
• Goldstone-Mode Phonon Dynamics in the Pyrochlore Cd2Re2O7

Cited by in corpus (10)

• A parity-breaking electronic nematic phase transition in the spin-orbit coupled metal Cd${}_2$Re${}_2$O${}_7$
• Group-theoretical classification of multipole order: emergent responses and candidate materials
• Electric Toroidal Quadrupoles in Spin-Orbit Coupled Metal Cd${}_2$Re${}_2$O${}_7$
• Pyrochlore Oxide Superconductor Cd2Re2O7 Revisited
• The nature of the tensor order in Cd2Re2O7
• Theory of electric, magnetic, and toroidal polarizations in crystalline solids with applications to hexagonal lonsdaleite and cubic diamond
• Nematic order on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator
• Metal-insulator transitions in pyrochlore oxides
• Unique properties of the optical activity in noncentrosymmetric superconductors: sum rule, missing area, and relation with the superconducting Edelstein effect
• Vector Optical Activity in the Weyl Semimetal TaAs