Anisotropic vacancy-induced magnetization textures in altermagnets

Abstract

We study magnetic textures induced by vacancies in altermagnets using microscopic simulations and low-energy field theory. We show that a vacancy generically produces a real-space anisotropic distortion of the magnetic order, whose structure encodes the symmetry of the underlying altermagnetic state. This impurity response offers a direct route to detecting altermagnetic order with locally resolved probes. We demonstrate this for both classical altermagnets, where vacancies generate anisotropic magnetization textures in a transverse magnetic field, and quantum models, where fluctuations induce longitudinal power-law decaying magnetic distortions even at zero field.