Altermagnetism is a recently identified magnetic symmetry class combining characteristics of conventional collinear ferromagnets and antiferromagnets, that were regarded as mutually exclusive, and enabling phenomena and functionalities unparalleled in either of the two traditional elementary magnetic classes. In this work we use symmetry, ab initio theory, and experiments to explore x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) in the altermagnetic class. As a representative material for our XMCD study we choose α-MnTe with compensated antiparallel magnetic order in which an anomalous Hall effect has been already demonstrated. We predict and experimentally confirm a characteristic XMCD line shape for compensated moments lying in a plane perpendicular to the light propagation vector. Our results highlight the distinct phenomenology in altermagnets of this time-reversal symmetry breaking response, and its potential utility for element-specific spectroscopy and microscopy.

Department of Condensed Matter Physics Faculty of Science Masaryk University Kotlářská 2 611 37 Brno Czechia

Department of Physics and Electronics Graduate School of Engineering Osaka Metropolitan University 1 1 Gakuen cho Nakaku Sakai Osaka 599 8531 Japan

Diamond Light Source Chilton OX11 0DE United Kingdom

Institut für Physik Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz D 55099 Mainz Germany

Institute for Solid State Physics TU Wien 1040 Vienna Austria

Institute of Physics Czech Academy of Sciences Cukrovarnická 10 162 00 Praha 6 Czech Republic

Institute of Semiconductor and Solid State Physics Johannes Kepler University Linz Altenbergerstraße 69 4040 Linz Austria

School of Physics and Astronomy University of Nottingham Nottingham NG7 2RD United Kingdom

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