Anisotropic vacancy-induced magnetization textures in altermagnets

Ruben Burkard; Mathias S. Scheurer; Urban F. P. Seifert

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arXiv · 2607.07789

Anisotropic vacancy-induced magnetization textures in altermagnets

Ruben Burkard·Mathias S. Scheurer·Urban F. P. Seifert

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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.

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Ruben Burkard, Mathias S. Scheurer, Urban F. P. Seifert. 2026-07-08. Anisotropic vacancy-induced magnetization textures in altermagnets. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.07789

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