Magnon drag induced by magnon-magnon interactions characteristic of noncollinear magnets

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that magnon-magnon interactions in noncollinear magnets induce a magnon drag effect, significantly enhancing magnon and heat currents, with potential for magnetic field-controlled spintronic applications.

Contribution

It reveals how cubic magnon-magnon interactions cause magnon drag in noncollinear magnets and how magnetic fields can tune this effect to enhance magnon transport.

Findings

Magnon drag causes magnons to carry spin and heat currents.

Strong magnetic fields induce peaks in spin-Seebeck coefficient and magnon conductivities.

Magnon and thermal conductivities increase by an order of magnitude due to cubic interactions.

Abstract

A noncollinear magnet consists of the magnetic moments forming a noncollinear spin structure. Because of this structure, the Hamiltonian of magnons acquires the cubic terms. Although the cubic terms are the magnon-magnon interactions characteristic of noncollinear magnets, their effects on magnon transport have not been clarified yet. Here we show that in a canted antiferromagnet the cubic terms cause a magnon drag that magnons drag magnon spin current and heat current, which can be used to enhance these currents by tuning a magnetic field. For a strong magnetic field, we find that the cubic terms induce low-temperature peaks of a spin-Seebeck coefficient, a magnon conductivity, and a magnon thermal conductivity, and that each value is one order of magnitude larger than the noninteracting value. This enhancement is mainly due to the magnetic field dependence of the coupling constant of the cubic terms through the magnetic-field dependent canting angle. Our magnon drag offers a way for controlling the magnon currents of noncollinear magnets via the many-body effect.