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Role of topology in compensated magnetic systems
2024, Reichlova, Helena, Kriegner, Dominik, Mook, Alexander, Althammer, Matthias, Thomas, Andy
Topology plays a crucial and multifaceted role in solid state physics, leading to a remarkable array of newly investigated materials and phenomena. In this Perspective, we provide a brief summary of well-established model materials with a particular focus on compensated magnets and highlight key phenomena that emerge due to the influence of topology in these systems. The overview covers various magneto-transport phenomena, with a particular focus on the extensively investigated anomalous magneto-transport effects. Furthermore, we look into the significance of topology in understanding elementary magnetic excitations, namely magnons, where the role of topology gained considerable attention from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. Since electrons and magnons carry energy, we explore the implications of topology in combined heat and spin transport experiments in compensated magnetic systems. At the end of each section, we highlight intriguing unanswered questions in this research direction. To finally conclude, we offer our perspective on what could be the next advancements regarding the interaction between compensated magnetism and topology.
Phononic-magnetic dichotomy of the thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev material Na2 Co2 TeO6
2023, Gillig, Matthias, Hong, Xiaochen, Wellm, Christoph, Kataev, Vladislav, Yao, Weiliang, Li, Yuan, Büchner, Bernd, Hess, Christian
The quest for a half-quantized thermal Hall effect of a Kitaev system represents an important tool to probe topological edge currents of emergent Majorana fermions. Pertinent experimental findings for α-RuCl3 are, however, strongly debated, and it has been argued that the thermal Hall signal stems from phonons or magnons rather than from Majorana fermions. Here, we investigate the thermal Hall effect of the Kitaev candidate material Na2Co2TeO6, and we show that the measured signal emerges from at least two components, phonons and magnetic excitations. This dichotomy results from our discovery that the longitudinal and transversal heat conductivities share clear phononic signatures, while the transversal signal changes sign upon entering the low-temperature, magnetically ordered phase. Our results demonstrate that uncovering a genuinely quantized magnetic thermal Hall effect in Kitaev topological quantum spin liquids such as α-RuCl3 and Na2Co2TeO6 requires disentangling phonon vs magnetic contributions, including potentially fractionalized excitations such as the expected Majorana fermions.