Dynamic paramagnon-polarons in altermagnets

Abstract

The combined rotational and time-reversal symmetry breakings that define an altermagnet lead to an unusual d-wave (or g-wave) magnetization order parameter, which in turn can be modeled in terms of multipolar magnetic moments. Here, we show that such an altermagnetic order parameter couples to the dynamics of the lattice even in the absence of an external magnetic field. This coupling is analogous to the non-dissipative Hall viscosity and describes the stress generated by a time-varying strain under broken time-reversal symmetry. We demonstrate that this effect generates a hybridized paramagnon-polaron mode, which allows one to assess altermagnetic excitations directly from the phonon spectrum. Using a scaling analysis, we also demonstrate that the dynamic strain coupling strongly affects the altermagnetic phase boundary, but in different ways in the thermal and quantum regimes. In the ground state for both 2D and 3D systems, we find that a hardening of the altermagnon mode leads to an extended altermagnetic ordered regime, whereas for non-zero temperatures in 2D, the softening of the phonon modes leads to increased fluctuations that lower the altermagnetic transition temperature. In 3D even at finite temperatures the dominant effect is the suppression of quantum fluctuations. We also discuss the application of these results to standard ferromagnetic systems.