Microscopic origin of subthermal magnons and the spin Seebeck effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates the microscopic mechanisms behind the dominance of low-energy magnons in the spin Seebeck effect, revealing that magnon-phonon scattering explains the spectral dependence and energy-dependent magnon transport properties.

Contribution

The study derives a microscopic model of magnon-phonon interactions, explaining the spectral dependence of the spin Seebeck effect and the energy-dependent magnon scattering.

Findings

Low-energy magnons are less scattered and dominate the spin Seebeck effect.

Magnon-phonon scattering increases sharply above a certain energy, impairing high-energy magnon transport.

The model explains the spectral dependence observed experimentally.

Abstract

Recent experimental evidence points to low-energy magnons as the primary contributors to the spin Seebeck effect. This spectral dependence is puzzling since it is not observed on other thermocurrents in the same material. Here, we argue that the physical origin of this behavior is the magnon-magnon scattering mediated by phonons, in a process which conserves the number of magnons. To assess the importance and features of this kind of scattering, we derive the effective magnon-phonon interaction from a microscopic model, including band energy, a screened electron-electron interaction and the electron-phonon interaction. Unlike higher order magnon-only scattering, we find that the coupling with phonons induce a scattering which is very small for low-energy (or subthermal) magnons but increases sharply above a certain energy -- rendering magnons above this energy poor spin-current transporters.