The long-range transport of deconfined magnetic hedgehogs

Phys.org  January 18, 2021 Using magnetic insulators to achieve long-range transport of spins has proved highly challenging. Researchers at UCLA resorted to topological spin textures rather than spins themselves for the purpose of long-range transport. The magnetic hedgehog is one type of topologically protected spin texture that generically exits in three-dimensional magnets. The researchers showed that the hedgehog current is a well conserved quantity and can be explored to achieve long-range transport in magnetic insulators. The study is based on the theoretical construct topological conservation law, which allowed the researchers to leverage the idea of hydrodynamics of topological spin textures. […]