Chirality and Kinetomagnetism

Synopsis

Chirality, which arises from the breaking of mirror symmetries combined with any spatial rotations, plays a ubiquitous role in a wide range of phenomena, from the DNA functionality, vine climbing to the piezoelectricity of quartz crystals. It's important to note that chirality does not necessarily involve a screw-like twisting, and magnetic chirality means chirality in spin ordered states or mesoscopic spin textures. Despite being mathematically well-defined, the term "chirality" has been extensively used, often in confusing ways, in the physics community in recent years. In steady states, chirality (C) does not change with time-reversal operation, while chirality prime (C¢) denotes the breaking of time-reversal symmetry in addition to broken all mirror symmetries, combined with any spatial rotations. Various examples of magnetic chirality and chirality prime and their emergent phenomena, such as self-inductance, directional nonreciprocity in magnetic fields, current-induced magnetization, chirality-selective spin-polarized current, Schwinger scattering, magneto-optical Kerr effect, linear magnetoelectricity, and chiral tunneling will be discussed. Many of these phenomena can be understood with one hypothesis on kinetomagnetism that I will present. Some of these exotic phenomena have been recently observed, while many others require experimental confirmation in the future.

For those who can’t make the Colloquia in person, they will also be viewable on Zoom at the following link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/88286288310?pwd=SENzT3dhdExNTjZLZzhZRnFQczc4UT09