Microscopic Theory of the Phonon Thermal Hall Effect in Chiral Mott Insulators

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Hauptverfasser: Kang, Junha, Oh, Taekoo
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Kang, Junha
Oh, Taekoo
author_facet Kang, Junha
Oh, Taekoo
contents The thermal Hall effect (THE) probes charge-neutral excitations in insulators, where the charge gap blocks electronic transport. Recently, phonons have been shown to induce a THE comparable in magnitude to the spin contribution, underscoring their critical role in thermal transport. Here, we develop a microscopic theory of the phonon thermal Hall effect (PTHE) in chiral Mott insulators. First, we derive the exact analytic form of the effective Raman interaction in half-filled Mott insulators, showing that its strength is directly proportional to the scalar spin chirality. Next, we demonstrate the intrinsic PTHE explicitly on the kagome lattice. Crucially, our formulation reveals a temperature-dependent crossover in the transport behavior under isotopic substitution. Using this result, we establish a scaling law that quantitatively separates the phonon contribution to the THE from other background signals. Our results not only provide the first fully microscopic derivation of the PTHE, but also establish a definitive experimental standard for isolating microscopic heat carriers in chiral Mott insulators.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_01876
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Microscopic Theory of the Phonon Thermal Hall Effect in Chiral Mott Insulators
Kang, Junha
Oh, Taekoo
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
The thermal Hall effect (THE) probes charge-neutral excitations in insulators, where the charge gap blocks electronic transport. Recently, phonons have been shown to induce a THE comparable in magnitude to the spin contribution, underscoring their critical role in thermal transport. Here, we develop a microscopic theory of the phonon thermal Hall effect (PTHE) in chiral Mott insulators. First, we derive the exact analytic form of the effective Raman interaction in half-filled Mott insulators, showing that its strength is directly proportional to the scalar spin chirality. Next, we demonstrate the intrinsic PTHE explicitly on the kagome lattice. Crucially, our formulation reveals a temperature-dependent crossover in the transport behavior under isotopic substitution. Using this result, we establish a scaling law that quantitatively separates the phonon contribution to the THE from other background signals. Our results not only provide the first fully microscopic derivation of the PTHE, but also establish a definitive experimental standard for isolating microscopic heat carriers in chiral Mott insulators.
title Microscopic Theory of the Phonon Thermal Hall Effect in Chiral Mott Insulators
topic Strongly Correlated Electrons
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01876