Orbital Edelstein effect from spontaneous symmetry breaking*

Coupling between charge and spin, and magnetoelectric effects more generally, have been an area of great interest for several years, with the sought-after ability to control magnetic degrees of freedom via electric currents serving as an impetus. The orbital Edelstein effect is a magnetoelectric effect consisting of a bulk orbital magnetization induced by an electric current. It is the orbital analogue of the spin Edelstein effect, in which the carriers’ spin gives rise to the magnetization. The orbital Edelstein effect has recently been investigated in the context of Weyl materials. Motivated by these developments, we examine a toy model in which a crystal exhibits such an orbital Edelstein effect upon symmetry breaking via density-wave order which reduces it to a gyrotropic crystal class.