Phononic dynamical axion in magnetic Dirac insulators

In cosmology, the axion is a hypothetical particle that is currently considered as candidate for dark matter. In condensed matter, a counterpart of the axion (the “axion quasiparticle”) has been predicted to emerge in magnetoelectric insulators with fluctuating magnetic order and in charge-ordered Weyl semimetals. To date, both the cosmological and condensed-matter axions remain experimentally elusive or unconfirmed. Here, we show theoretically that ordinary lattice vibrations can form an axion quasiparticle in Dirac insulators with broken time- and space-inversion symmetries, even in the absence of magnetic fluctuations. The physical manifestation of the phononic axion is a magnetic-field-induced phonon effective charge, which can be probed in optical spectroscopy. By replacing magnetic fluctuations with lattice vibrations, our theory widens the scope for the observability of the axion quasiparticle in condensed matter.