Magnon-mediated thermal transport in antiferromagnets: the link to momentum-resolved magnon lifetime data

TL;DR

This paper uses experimentally obtained magnon lifetime data to calculate thermal conductivity in a 2D antiferromagnet without adjustable parameters, linking microscopic scattering processes to macroscopic thermal transport.

Contribution

It introduces a parameter-free method to compute magnon-mediated thermal conductivity using momentum-resolved magnon lifetime data.

Findings

Quantifies the impact of domain boundary scattering on thermal transport.

Demonstrates a parameter-free calculation approach for magnon thermal conductivity.

Provides insights into quasiparticle scattering effects on heat conduction.

Abstract

Transport currents in solids decay through collisions of quasiparticles with each other and with defects or boundaries. Since information about collisional lifetimes is difficult to obtain, most calculations of transport properties rely on parameters that are not known independently. Here, we use magnon lifetime data for the two-dimensional antiferromagnet Rb2MnF4 to calculate the magnon-mediated thermal conductivity without any adjustable parameters, thereby quantifying the influence of scattering from domain boundaries on transport. Related strategies have the potential to enhance our understanding of thermal transport by electronic and phononic quasiparticles greatly.