Ground-state magnetic structure of hexagonal YMnO3 compound: A non-collinear spin density functional theory study

•DFT study of six possible non-collinear magnetic configurations in YMnO3 was realized.•Two magnetic configurations are clearly indicated as ground-state candidates.•The receipt how to determine experimentally which one is ground state is proposed.

With objective to determine ground state magnetic structure of multiferroic hexagonal YMnO3 we performed systematic non-collinear spin density-functional-theory (DFT) study of six possible magnetic configurations of Mn ions, treating exchange and correlation effects by standard local-spin-density approximation (LSDA), by LSDA including Hubbard correction (LSDA+U), and taking into account the spin-orbit interaction. We found that P63 and P6´3 configurations are the most stable ones, with very small energy difference between them. This result substantiates conclusions of latest neutron-diffraction studies. Both configurations are characterized by canting of Mn spins that produces weak ferro- (P63) or anti-ferromagnetism (P6′3) along the hexagonal c-axis. The calculated Mn magnetic moments are found to be in good agreement with experiment, and electronic structure generally agrees with previous non-collinear spin DFT studies that used different basis sets and exchange and correlation functionals.