Magnonic Klein and acausal tunneling enabled by breaking the anti parity-time symmetry in antiferromagnets

Abstract Klein tunneling associated with particle-antiparticle pair productions across a potential barrier is a key prediction of quantum-field theory for relativistic particles. Yet, a direct experimental realization is hampered by the particles large rest mass resulting in high potential barrier....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shaohua Yuan, Chaowei Sui, Zhengduo Fan, Jamal Berakdar, Desheng Xue, Chenglong Jia
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2023-05-01
Series:Communications Physics
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-023-01222-z
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Summary:Abstract Klein tunneling associated with particle-antiparticle pair productions across a potential barrier is a key prediction of quantum-field theory for relativistic particles. Yet, a direct experimental realization is hampered by the particles large rest mass resulting in high potential barrier. Here, for non-Hermitian antiferromagnets, at the verge of the anti-parity-time symmetry transition, chiral magnons are demonstrated to offer a bosonic platform to access Klein tunneling at meV energies in experimentally feasible settings. Our analytical and numerical simulations evidence that magnetic damping renders a low energy mechanism for the breakdown of the magnonic vacuum and for creating particle-antiparticle pairs in strong magnetic fields. Adopting Feynman’s picture for antiparticles, the tunneling time of an incident magnon wave packet across a supercritical barrier is found to be negative. The uncovered aspects point to the potential of chiral magnons for addressing fundamental physics in a conceptually simple setup with the potential for use in chirality-dependent magnonic computing.
ISSN:2399-3650