Spin-phonon coupling and thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev model

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Oh, Taekoo, Nagaosa, Naoto
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Oh, Taekoo
Nagaosa, Naoto
author_facet Oh, Taekoo
Nagaosa, Naoto
contents The Kitaev model, which involves bond-direction-dependent spin interactions on a honeycomb lattice, has attracted significant interest due to its exact solvability and potential uses in quantum computing. A key feature of this model is the half-quantized thermal Hall conductivity (HQTHC) under a magnetic field perpendicular to the lattice; however, HQTHC only appears at low temperatures. Here, in the higher temperature range beyond the HQTHC regime, we theoretically suggest an extrinsic phonon contribution to the thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev model through skew-scattering of chiral phonons by scalar spin chirality, previously examined in Mott insulators. We demonstrate the emergence of scalar spin chirality from fluctuating spins, estimate the resulting field strength and its symmetric form applied to chiral phonons, and obtain the associated thermal Hall conductivity in semi-quantitative agreement with existing experiments. This work offers a fundamental understanding of how spin-phonon interactions influence strongly correlated systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_11272
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spin-phonon coupling and thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev model
Oh, Taekoo
Nagaosa, Naoto
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
The Kitaev model, which involves bond-direction-dependent spin interactions on a honeycomb lattice, has attracted significant interest due to its exact solvability and potential uses in quantum computing. A key feature of this model is the half-quantized thermal Hall conductivity (HQTHC) under a magnetic field perpendicular to the lattice; however, HQTHC only appears at low temperatures. Here, in the higher temperature range beyond the HQTHC regime, we theoretically suggest an extrinsic phonon contribution to the thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev model through skew-scattering of chiral phonons by scalar spin chirality, previously examined in Mott insulators. We demonstrate the emergence of scalar spin chirality from fluctuating spins, estimate the resulting field strength and its symmetric form applied to chiral phonons, and obtain the associated thermal Hall conductivity in semi-quantitative agreement with existing experiments. This work offers a fundamental understanding of how spin-phonon interactions influence strongly correlated systems.
title Spin-phonon coupling and thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev model
topic Strongly Correlated Electrons
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11272