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Quantization of the thermal Hall conductivity at small Hall angles

We discuss the general conditions under which the thermal Hall conductivity in a chiral topological phase (e.g., a gapped chiral spin liquid) may be quantized in the presence of a much larger longitudinal thermal conductivity. Our work sheds light on the recent experimental work by Kasahara et al. (Nature), in which the quantized thermal Hall conductivity in alpha-RuCl3 is interpreted as the first smoking-gun signature of a quantum spin liquid. Our theory explains the observed quantization of the thermal Hall conductivity but also predicts that it should break down upon lowering the temperature, thereby providing possible further experimental evidence.

Facts and FAQs

  • The quantization of the thermal Hall conductivity relies on the Majorana-phonon coupling.
  • The quantization should break down upon lowering the temperature, and for small enough systems (in the x direction).

Check it out!

Quantization of the thermal Hall conductivity at small Hall angles

  • published in PRL: PRL 121, 147201 (1 Oct. 2018)
  • Leon's nice blogpost about it: spinsandelectrons.com
  • accepted in PRL (17 Sept. 2018)
  • arXiv: arxiv:1805.10532 (25 May 2018)
  • invited talk at Highly Frustrated Magnetism 2018, Davis, CA (13 July 2018)
  • invited talk at MaNEP, Les Diablerets, Switzerland (30 Aug. 2018)
  • invited talk in Bensberg, Germany (10 Sept. 2018)
  • June 2018 Cond Mat Journal Club: here (29 June 2018)
  • Leon's talk at UQMII (Aug. 2018): here
  • Leon's talk at the DOE meeting (Aug. 2018): here

Bibtex (Click to Show/Hide)

Quantization of the thermal Hall conductivity at small Hall angles

@article{PhysRevLett.121.147201,
title = {Quantization of the Thermal {Hall} Conductivity at Small {Hall} Angles},
author = {Ye, Mengxing and Hal\'asz, G\'abor B. and Savary, Lucile and Balents, Leon},
journal = {Phys. Rev. Lett.},
volume = {121},
issue = {14},
pages = {147201},
numpages = {5},
year = {2018},
month = {Oct},
publisher = {American Physical Society},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.147201},
url = {https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.147201},
notes = {arXiv:1805.10532}
}