Steering Magnetic Skyrmions with Nonequilibrium Green's Functions

Magnetic skyrmions, topologically protected vortex-like configurations in spin textures, are of wide conceptual and practical appeal for quantum information technologies, notably in relation to the making of so-called race-track memory devices. Skyrmions can be created, steered and destroyed with magnetic fields and/or (spin) currents. Here we focus on the latter mechanism, analyzed via a microscopic treatment of the skyrmion-current interaction. The system we consider is an isolated skyrmion in a square-lattice cluster, interacting with electrons spins in a current-carrying quantum wire. For the theoretical description, we employ a quantum formulation of spin-dependent currents via nonequilibrium Green's functions (NEGF) within the generalized Kadanoff-Baym ansatz (GKBA). This is combined with a treatment of skyrmions based on classical localized spins, with the skyrmion motion described via Ehrenfest dynamics. With our mixed quantum-classical scheme, we assess how time-dependent currents can affect the skyrmion dynamics, and how this in turn depends on electron-electron and spin-orbit interactions in the wire. Our study shows the usefulness of a quantum-classical treatment of skyrmion steering via currents, as a way for example to validate/extract an effective, classical-only, description of skyrmion dynamics from a microscopic quantum modeling of the skyrmion-current interaction.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, contribution to the proceedings of "Progress in Nonequilibrium Green's Functions VII

Nonequilibrium Green's functions and atom-surface dynamics: Simple views from a simple model system

We employ Non-equilibrium Green's functions (NEGF) to describe the real-time dynamics of an adsorbate-surface model system exposed to ultrafast laser pulses. For a finite number of electronic orbitals, the system is solved exactly and within different levels of approximation. Specifically i) the full exact quantum mechanical solution for electron and nuclear degrees of freedom is used to benchmark ii) the Ehrenfest approximation (EA) for the nuclei, with the electron dynamics still treated exactly. Then, using the EA, electronic correlations are treated with NEGF within iii) 2nd Born and with iv) a recently introduced hybrid scheme, which mixes 2nd Born self-energies with non-perturbative, local exchange-correlation potentials of Density Functional Theory (DFT). Finally, the effect of a semi-infinite substrate is considered: we observe that a macroscopic number of de-excitation channels can hinder desorption. While very preliminary in character and based on a simple and rather specific model system, our results clearly illustrate the large potential of NEGF to investigate atomic desorption, and more generally, the non equilibrium dynamics of material surfaces subject to ultrafast laser fields.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Nonequilibrium Kondo-vs-RKKY Scenarios in Nanoclusters

Ultrafast manipulations of magnetic phases are eliciting increasing attention from the scientific community, because potentially relevant to the understanding of nonequilibrium phase transitions and to novel technologies. Here, we focus on manipulations applied to magnetic impurities in metallic hosts. By considering small nanoring geometries, we show how currents can induce a dynamical switching between different types of exchange interactions in these systems. Our work thus opens a study window on nonequilibrium Doniach's magnetic phase diagrams, and time-dependent Kondo-vs-RKKY scenarios.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, to appear in EP

Scaling properties of a spatial one-particle density-matrix entropy in many-body localized systems

We investigate a spatial subsystem entropy extracted from the one-particle density matrix (OPDM) of one-dimensional disordered interacting fermions that host a many-body localized (MBL) phase. Deep in the putative MBL regime, this OPDM entropy exhibits the salient scaling features of localization, even though it provides only an upper bound to the von Neumann entropy. First, we numerically show that the OPDM entropy of the eigenstates obeys an area law. Second, like the von Neumann entropy, the OPDM entropy grows logarithmically with time after a quantum quench, albeit with a different prefactor. Both these features survive at moderately large interactions and well toward the transition into the ergodic phase. We discuss prospects for calculating the OPDM entropy using approximate numerical methods and for its measurement in quantum gas experiments

Merging Features from Green's Functions and Time Dependent Density Functional Theory : A Route to the Description of Correlated Materials out of Equilibrium?

We propose a description of nonequilibrium systems via a simple protocol that combines exchangecorrelation potentials from density functional theory with self-energies of many-body perturbation theory. The approach, aimed to avoid double counting of interactions, is tested against exact results in Hubbardtype systems, with respect to interaction strength, perturbation speed and inhomogeneity, and system dimensionality and size. In many regimes, we find significant improvement over adiabatic time dependent density functional theory or second Born nonequilibrium Green’s function approximations. We briefly discuss the reasons for the residual discrepancies, and directions for future work.peerReviewe