Multipolar edge states in the breathing kagome model

Abstract

Excitations of ordered insulating magnets gain renewed interest due to their potential topological properties and the natural realization of magnetic analogues of the celebrated topological models. In this paper we go beyond these parallels and explore what else is there in the unconventional excitations of quantum magnets. We study the topologically nontrivial multiplet excitations of the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 kagome system with strong breathing anisotropy and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. We show that in the chiral magnetic ground state the excitations can be characterized by a spin-1/2 doublet and a spin-3/2 quartet. With the use of magnetic field we can tune the quartet through a band touching topological phase transition, when a novel spin-3/2 Dirac cone is formed by the touching of four bands. In the topologically nontrivial regime the spin-3/2 bands have large Chern numbers -3, -1, 1, 3. In an open system the emerging chiral edge states naturally inherit the multipolar characters and we find novel quadrupolar edge modes.