We consider the dynamical properties of a gapped quantum spin system coupled to the electric field of a laser, which drives the resonant excitation of specific phonon modes that modulate the magnetic interactions. We deduce the quantum master equations governing the time-evolution of both the lattice and spin sectors, by developing a Lindblad formalism with bath operators providing an explicit description of their respective phonon-mediated damping terms. We investigate the nonequilibrium steady states (NESS) of the spin system established by a continuous driving, delineating parameter regimes in driving frequency, damping, and spin-phonon coupling for the establishment of physically meaningful NESS and their related nontrivial properties. Focusing on the regime of generic weak spin-phonon coupling, we characterize the NESS by their frequency and wave-vector content, explore their transient and relaxation behavior, and discuss the energy flow, the system temperature, and the critical role of the type of bath adopted. Our study lays a foundation for the quantitative modeling of experiments currently being designed to control coherent many-body spin states in quantum magnetic materials.
1 November 2018 in Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials
The nontrivial spin texture on the (001) surface of topological crystalline insulator SnTe hosts exotic scientific importance and spintronic applications. Here, we study the effects of weak Floquet optical driving on the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction between two magnetic impurities on a doped SnTe(001) surface. Due to peculiar spin-orbit hybridization, we find a noncollinear twisted RKKY interaction with XYZ-Heisenberg, symmetric in-plane, and asymmetric Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) terms. We see that contributions from the component of the XYZ-Heisenberg (DM) interaction are dominant for most parameters. The interactions, including DM terms that are responsible for interesting spin textures, require doping in most cases. We propose to modify the interactions in situ via optical control of band structure, and thereby doping. A notable aspect of this control protocol is breaking of electron-hole symmetry, which stems from the DM interaction.