Magnetic crystalline-symmetry-protected axion electrodynamics and field-tunable unpinned Dirac cones in EuIn2As2


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Knowledge of magnetic symmetry is vital for exploiting nontrivial surface states of magnetic topological materials. EuIn$_{2}$As$_{2}$ is an excellent example, as it is predicted to have collinear antiferromagnetic order where the magnetic moment direction determines either a topological-crystalline-insulator phase supporting axion electrodynamics or a higher-order-topological-insulator phase with chiral hinge states. Here, we use neutron diffraction, symmetry analysis, and density functional theory results to demonstrate that EuIn$_{2}$As$_{2}$ actually exhibits low-symmetry helical antiferromagnetic order which makes it a stoichiometric magnetic topological-crystalline axion insulator protected by the combination of a 180$^{circ}$ rotation and time-reversal symmetries: $C_{2}timesmathcal{T}=2^{prime}$. Surfaces protected by $2^{prime}$ are expected to have an exotic gapless Dirac cone which is unpinned to specific crystal momenta. All other surfaces have gapped Dirac cones and exhibit half-integer quantum anomalous Hall conductivity. We predict that the direction of a modest applied magnetic field of $Happrox1$ to $2$ T can tune between gapless and gapped surface states.

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