Magnetic Monopole Supercurrent through a Quantum Spin Ice Tunnel Junction

Abstract

Magnetic monopoles are hypothetical particles that may exist as quantized sources and sinks of the magnetic field. In materials, they may appear in an emergent quantum electrodynamics described by a U(1) lattice gauge theory. Particularly, quantum spin ice hosts monopoles as bosonic spinons coupled to emergent gauge fields in a U(1) quantum spin liquid, namely, a deconfined Coulomb phase. When monopoles are condensed to form a long-range order, monopoles and gauge fields are screened and confined. Here we show, however, that monopole supercurrent flows across a junction of two ferromagnets that are weakly linked through and placed on top of the U(1) QSL, when a gauge-invariant phase difference of spinons across the junction is generated by quenching or an applied electric voltage parallel to the junction. This novel phenomenon paves the way to a new paradigm of spinonics for a dissipationless control of magnetism.

6 pages, 2 figures. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. in press

References in corpus (6)

• Color superconductivity in dense quark matter
• Pyrochlore Photons: The U(1) Spin Liquid in a S=1/2 Three-Dimensional Frustrated Magnet
• Dynamically-Induced Frustration as a Route to a Quantum Spin Ice State in Tb2Ti2O7 via Virtual Crystal Field Excitations and Quantum Many-Body Effects
• Scanning SQUID susceptometers with sub-micron spatial resolution
• Electric field control of emergent electrodynamics in quantum spin ice
• First-principles design of the spinel iridate Ir2O4 for high-temperature quantum spin ice

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Seeing beyond the light: Vison and photon electrodynamics in quantum spin ice
• Monopole Josephson Effects in a Dirac Spin Liquid
• Peering into the darkness: vison-generated photon mass in quantum spin ice
• A Magnetic-Monopole-Based Mechanism to the formation of the Hot Big Bang Modeled Universe
• Hybrid Dyons, inverted Lorentz force and magnetic Nernst effect in quantum spin ice