Ballistic magnetic thermal transport coupled to phonons

TL;DR

This paper introduces a phenomenological model for thermal transport in spin chain compounds, coupling ballistic magnetic transport with diffusive phononic transport, and suggests experimental ways to visualize the ballistic magnetic contribution.

Contribution

It presents a novel model that combines ballistic magnetic and diffusive phononic thermal transport, offering a new interpretation and visualization method for magnetic thermal conductivity.

Findings

Effective thermal conductivity expression matches Sanders-Walton model

Ballistic magnetic transport can produce a two-peak temperature profile

Model applicable to experiments with coupled diffusive and ballistic thermal components

Abstract

Motivated by thermal conductivity experiments in spin chain compounds, we propose a phenomenological model to account for a ballistic magnetic transport coupled to a diffusive phononic one, along the line of the seminal two-temperature diffusive transport Sanders-Walton model. Although the expression for the effective thermal conductivity is identical to that of Sanders-Walton, the interpretation is entirely different, as the "magnetic conductivity" is replaced by an "effective transfer conductivity" between the magnetic and phononic component. This model also reveals the fascinating possibility of visualizing the ballistic character of magnetic transport, for appropriately chosen material parameters, as a two peak counter-propagating feature in the phononic temperature. It is also appropriate for the analysis of any thermal transport experiment involving a diffusive component coupled to a ballistic one.