2004/04/30 by Patrick Bruno · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.93.247202
published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 93 (2004) 247202; Erratum-ibid. 94 (2005) 239903 · 4 pages, 3 figures (RevTeX + eps); v2 (revised paper): 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2004/08/31 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
The Berry phase of an anisotropic spin system that is adiabatically rotated along a closed circuit C is investigated. It is shown that the Berry phase consists of two contributions: (i) a geometric contribution which can be interpreted as the flux through C of a non-quantized Dirac monopole, and (ii) a topological contribution which can be interpreted as the flux through C of a Dirac string carrying a non-quantized flux, i.e., a spin analogue of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. Various experimental consequences of this novel effect are discussed.