Electric-field-induced spin resonance in antiferromagnetic insulators: Inverse process of the dynamical chiral magnetic effect

Abstract

We propose a realization of the electric-field-induced antiferromagnetic resonance. We consider three-dimensional antiferromagnetic insulators with spin-orbit coupling characterized by the existence of a topological term called the $\theta$ term. By solving the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation in the presence of the $\theta$ term, we show that, in contrast to conventional methods using ac magnetic fields, the antiferromagnetic resonance state is realized by ac electric fields along with static magnetic fields. This mechanism can be understood as the inverse process of the dynamical chiral magnetic effect, an alternating current generation by magnetic fields. In other words, we propose a way to electrically induce the dynamical axion field in condensed matter. We discuss a possible experiment to observe our proposal, which utilizes the spin pumping from the antiferromagnetic insulator into a heavy metal contact.