# Consideration of Thermal Hall Effect in Undoped Cuprates

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermal Hall effect in undoped cuprates, finding that magnon theories fail to explain the phenomenon, while a spinon-based model with non-zero Chern number can reproduce experimental signals.

## Contribution

It introduces a spinon-based model with a Chern number that can generate thermal Hall signals, challenging traditional magnon-based explanations.

## Key findings

- Magnon theories with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions do not produce thermal Hall conductivity.
- Impurity scattering and skyrmion defects fail to generate the effect.
- A spinon model with a Chern number reproduces observed thermal Hall behavior.

## Abstract

A recent observation of thermal Hall effect of magnetic origin in underdoped cuprates calls for critical re-examination of low-energy magnetic dynamics in undoped antiferromagnetic compound on square lattice, where traditional, renormalized spin-wave theory was believed to work well. Using Holstein-Primakoff boson formalism, we find that magnon-based theories can lead to finite Berry curvature in the magnon band once the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya spin interaction is taken into account explicitly, but fail to produce non-zero thermal Hall conductivity. Assuming accidental doping by impurities and magnon scattering off of such impurity sites fails to predict skew scattering at the level of Born approximation. Local formation of skyrmion defects is also found incapable of generating magnon thermal Hall effect. Turning to spinon-based scenario, we write down a simple model by adding spin-dependent diagonal hopping to the well-known {\pi}-flux model of spinons. The resulting two-band model has Chern number in the band structure, and generates thermal Hall conductivity whose magnetic field and temperature dependences mimic closely the observed thermal Hall signals. In disclaimer, there is no firm microscopic basis of this model and we do not claim to have found an explanation of the data, but given the unexpected nature of the experimental observation, it is hoped this work could serve as a first step towards reaching some level of understanding.