Nonreciprocal Magnons and Symmetry-Breaking in the Noncentrosymmetric Antiferromagnet.
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| Abstract | :  Inelastic neutron scattering measurements were performed to study spin dynamics in the noncentrosymmetric antiferromagnet α-Cu_{2}V_{2}O_{7}. For the first time, nonreciprocal magnons were experimentally measured in an antiferromagnet. These nonreciprocal magnons are caused by the incompatibility between anisotropic exchange and antisymmetric Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, which arise from broken symmetry, resulting in a collinear ordered state but helical spin dynamics. The nonreciprocity introduces the difference in the phase velocity of the counterrotating modes, causing the opposite spontaneous magnonic Faraday rotation of the left- and right-propagating spin waves. The breaking of spatial inversion and time reversal symmetry is revealed as a magnetic-field-induced asymmetric energy shift, which provides a test for the detailed balance relation. | 
| Year of Publication | :  2017 | 
| Journal | :  Physical review letters | 
| Volume | :  119 | 
| Issue | :  4 | 
| Number of Pages | :  047201 | 
| Date Published | :  2017 | 
| ISSN Number | :  0031-9007 | 
| URL | :  http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v119/p047201 | 
| DOI | :  10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.047201 | 
| Short Title | :  Phys Rev Lett | 
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