Magnonic quantum Hall effect and Wiedemann-Franz law

TL;DR

This paper predicts a magnon quantum Hall effect in two-dimensional insulating magnets, demonstrating quantized magnon Hall conductance and a magnon Wiedemann-Franz law, with potential experimental realization.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for magnon quantum Hall effect and magnon Wiedemann-Franz law in 2D magnets, including both quadratic and Dirac-like dispersions.

Findings

Magnon Landau levels form via Aharonov-Casher effect in electric field gradients.

Magnon Hall conductance becomes quantized and material-independent at low temperatures.

The magnon Wiedemann-Franz law relates thermal and magnetic conductance universally.

Abstract

We present a quantum Hall effect of magnons in two-dimensional clean insulating magnets at finite temperature. Through the Aharonov-Casher effect, a magnon moving in an electric field acquires a geometric phase and forms Landau levels in an electric field gradient of sawtooth form. At low temperatures, the lowest energy band being almost flat carries a Chern number associated with a Berry curvature. Appropriately defining the thermal conductance for bosons, we find that the magnon Hall conductances get quantized and show a universal thermomagnetic behavior, i.e., are independent of materials, and obey a Wiedemann-Franz law for magnon transport. We consider magnons with quadratic and linear (Dirac-like) dispersions. Finally, we show that our predictions are within experimental reach for ferromagnets and skyrmion lattices with current device and measurement techniques.