Anomalous Cherenkov spin-orbit sound

Abstract

The Cherenkov effect is a well known phenomenon in the electrodynamics of fast charged particles passing through transparent media. If the particle is faster than the light in a given medium, the medium emits a forward light cone. This beautiful phenomenon has an acoustic counterpart where the role of photons is played by phonons and the role of the speed of light is played by the sound velocity. In this case the medium emits a forward sound cone. Here, we show that in a system with spin-orbit interactions in addition to this normal Cherenkov sound there appears an anomalous Cherenkov sound with forward and backward sound propagation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the transition from the normal to anomalous Cherenkov sound happens in a singular way at the Cherenkov cone angle. The detection of this acoustic singularities therefore represents an alternative experimental tool for the measurement of the spin-orbit coupling strength.