Augmented Magnetic Octupole in Kagome Antiferromagnets Detectable via X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism

Abstract

The magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) has recently been discovered in antiferromagnetic Kagome lattice Mn3Sn. Since the compound exhibits a coplanar $120^\circ$ antiferromagnetic (AFM) order, the magnetic moments cancel each other, and the net magnetization is almost zero. However, the MOKE is allowed due to the lack of the time-reversal symmetry (TRS) of the AFM order. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) can detect a difference in up and down the spin density of states (DOS), and thus XMCD originating from the spin operator, the so-called Sz term, should be negligibly small as well as the net magnetization. Nonetheless, we show that XMCD originating from the magnetic dipole operator, the so-called Tz term, should remain uncancelled in the AFM with the broken TRS. Moreover, we clarify that there is a strong link between the Tz term and the augmented magnetic octupole (AMO), which suggests that XMCD can be an effective approach for analyzing multipole moments in antiferromagnets.