Thermal transport in antiferromagnetic spin-chain materials

Abstract

We study the problem of heat transport in one-dimensional (1D) spin-chain systems weakly coupled to three-dimensional phonons and impurities. We consider the limit of fast spin excitations and slow phonons, applicable to a number of compounds of the cuprates family, such as Sr2CuO3, where the superexchange J is much larger than the Debye energy. In this case the Umklapp scattering among the spin excitations is strongly suppressed for all relevant temperatures. We argue that the leading scattering mechanism for the spin excitations at not too low temperatures is the "normal" (as opposed to the Umklapp) spin-phonon scattering in which the non-equilibrium momentum is transferred from the spin subsystem to phonons where it quickly relaxes through the "phonon bath". Because of the lower dimensionality of the spin excitations it is only the momentum along the chains which is conserved in such a scattering. We find that this effect leads to a particular momentum- and temperature-dependence of the spin-phonon relaxation rate valid for the broad class of low-dimensional spin systems. Subsequently we demonstrate that the spin-phonon relaxation mechanism is insufficient for the low-energy, long-wavelength 1D spin-chain excitations, which make the thermal conductivity diverge. We complete our consideration by taking into account the impurity scattering, which in 1D cuts off the quasi-ballistic spin excitations and renders the thermal conductivity finite. Our results compare very well with the existing experimental data for Sr2CuO3. Using our microscopic insight into the problem we propose further experiments and predict an unusual impurity concentration dependence for a number of quantities.

22 pages, 10 figures. Long story

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Cited by in corpus (28)

• Finite-temperature transport in one-dimensional quantum lattice models
• Heat conduction in low-dimensional quantum magnets
• Real-time and real-space spin- and energy dynamics in one-dimensional spin-1/2 systems induced by local quantum quenches at finite temperatures
• Thermal conductivity via magnetic excitations in spin-chain materials
• Ballistic heat transport of quantum spin excitations as seen in SrCuO2
• Nonequilibrium thermal transport and its relation to linear response
• Heat transport in the $XXZ$ spin chain: from ballistic to diffusive regimes and dephasing enhancement
• Sudden expansion of Mott insulators in one dimension
• Magnetic heat conductivity in $\mathbf{CaC}{\mathbf{u}}_2{\mathbf{O}}_3$: linear temperature dependence
• Spin and thermal conductivity of quantum spin ladders
• Heat transport of cuprate-based low-dimensional quantum magnets with strong exchange coupling
• Spinon heat transport and spin-phonon interaction in the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain cuprates Sr2CuO3 and SrCuO2
• Magnon Heat Conductivity and Mean Free Paths in Two-Leg Spin Ladders: A Model-Independent Determination
• Proposal for measuring the finite-temperature Drude weight of integrable systems
• Superdiffusive transport of energy in one-dimensional metals
• Heat transport of clean spin-ladders coupled to phonons: Umklapp scattering and drag
• Thermal conductivity in large-$J$ two-dimensional antiferromagnets: Role of phonon scattering
• Heat Transport in Spin Chains with Weak Spin-Phonon Coupling
• Effects of Grain Boundaries and Defects on Anisotropic Magnon Transport in Textured Sr14Cu24O41
• Bond disorder and spinon heat transport in the $S=\frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg spin chain compound Sr${}_2$CuO${}_3$: from clean to dirty limits
• Field-dependent spin and heat conductivities of dimerized spin-1/2 chains
• Non-equilibrium thermal transport and vacuum expansion in the Hubbard model
• Thermal drag revisited: Boltzmann versus Kubo
• Thermal drag in spin ladders coupled to phonons
• Large magnetic thermal conductivity induced by frustration in low-dimensional quantum magnets
• Thermal and optical conductivity in the Holstein model at half filling and at finite temperature in the Luttinger-liquid and charge-density-wave regime
• Magnetothermal Transport in Spin-Ladder Systems
• Isolated spin ladders in Ln${}_2$Ti${}_9$Sb${}_{11}$ (Ln:La-Nd) metals