Thermal conductivity in noncollinear magnets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how non-collinear spin arrangements in magnets influence magnon-based thermal conductivity, revealing that heat is primarily transported by relaxons rather than individual magnons, with conductivity increasing as spiral pitch diminishes.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive method to calculate magnetic thermal transport in non-collinear magnets, highlighting the role of relaxons over magnons.

Findings

Thermal conductivity increases as spiral pitch decreases.

Relaxons dominate heat transport over individual magnons.

Numerical solutions show higher conductivity than single-mode estimates.

Abstract

Magnetic memory and logic devices, including prospective ones based on skyrmions, inevitably produce heat. Thus, controlling heat flow is essential for their performance. Here we study how non-collinear spin arrangement affects the magnon contribution to thermal conductivity. As a paradigm system, we consider the most basic non-collinear magnet with a spin spiral ground state. Spin noncollinearity leads to anharmonic terms, resulting in magnon fusion and decay processes. These processes determine the magnon lifetime, which can be used to estimate thermal conductivity in a single-mode approximation. However, by solving the full Boltzmann equation numerically, we find a much higher thermal conductivity. This signifies that heat is carried not by individual magnons but by their linear combinations -- relaxons. The thermal conductivity is found to increase with the diminishing spiral pitch, consistent with recent experiments. The results provide the blueprint for calculating magnetic thermal transport in non-collinear magnets.