Anomalous Hall effect in the t2g orbital kagome lattice due to noncollinearity: Significance of the orbital Aharonov-Bohm effect

A mechanism of spin structure-driven anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in tilted ferromagnetic metals is proposed by taking account of the d-orbital degree of freedom. We find that a conduction electron acquires a Berry phase due to the complex d-orbital wave function, in the presence of noncollinear spin structure and the spin-orbit interaction. The AHE driven by this orbital-derived Berry phase is much larger than the AHE induced by spin chirality, and it naturally explains the salient features of spin structure-driven AHE in pyrochlore Nd2Mo2O7. Since the proposed AHE can occur even for coplanar spin orders (M-z=0), it is expected to emerge in other interesting geometrically frustrated systems.