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arXiv · 2109.01119

Magnon heat transport in a two-dimensional Mott insulator

Wen O. Wang·Jixun K. Ding·Brian Moritz·Edwin W. Huang·Thomas P. Devereaux
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Abstract

Whether or not anomalies in the thermal conductivity in insulating cuprates can be attributed to antiferromagnetic order and magnons in a 2D Mott insulator remains an intriguing open question. To shed light on this issue, we investigate the thermal conductivity $\kappa$ and its relationship with the specific heat $c_v$ in the half-filled 2D single-band Hubbard model, using the numerically exact determinant quantum Monte Carlo algorithm and maximum entropy analytic continuation. At low temperatures where the charge degrees of freedom are gapped-out and $c_v$ exhibits a clear magnon peak, we observe that thermal conductivity $\kappa$ also tends to form a peak at similar temperatures. Reducing temperature further produces a sharp upturn in $\kappa$, associated with an increasing mean-free path. We identify this as the high-temperature side of the anomalous peak in insulating cuprates, where the mean-free path eventually is cut-off by other scattering effects, including phonons, disorder, and physical size. Different scattering effects in our model are identified and analyzed in the thermal diffusivity.

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Wen O. Wang, Jixun K. Ding, Brian Moritz, Edwin W. Huang, Thomas P. Devereaux. 2021-09-02. Magnon heat transport in a two-dimensional Mott insulator. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.105.l161103

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