Magnon frequency renormalization by the electronic geometrical spin torque in itinerant magnets

Abstract

We investigate non-adiabatic effects on the magnon frequency in an interacting system of localized spins and itinerant electrons. Including the lowest order corrections to the adiabatic dynamics in an analytically solvable model, applicable to simple ferromagnets like Fe, Co and Ni, we find that the magnon frequency is renormalized by a geometrical torque arising from the electronic spin Berry curvature. Comparison to exact numerical simulations reveals that our analytical solution captures essential low-energy features, and provides a mechanism for the magnon frequency hardening observed in recent first principles calculations for Fe, provided the geometrical torque is taken into account.