Magnon Hall effect in antiferromagnetic lattices

Abstract

Topology applied to condensed matter is an important area of research and technology, and topological magnetic excitations have recently become an active field of study. This paper presents a general discussion of magnon Hall transport in two-dimensional antiferromagnets. Although the Chern number is zero for a collinear antiferromagnet, we offer a general discussion that can be used in the more general case. First, we study the Union Jack lattice, where an effective time-reversal symmetry is broken, making the system display the magnon Hall effect. Then, we investigate the brick-wall lattice where such symmetry is present. Consequently, we have a phenomenon similar to the quantum spin Hall effect in electronic systems. Both lattices have not yet been studied from the topological point of view. The coexistence of opposite spin polarization in an antiferromagnet resembles the electron spin in various transport phenomena. We study magnon transport in the lattices mentioned above with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and easy-axis single-ion anisotropy. We calculate the Berry curvature from the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian. From that, we plot the spin Hall and thermal Hall conductivities, as well as the spin Nernst coefficient, as functions of the temperature. In the Union Jack lattice, we treat the effect of anharmonic interactions using a mean-field spin wave theory where the Hamiltonian becomes implicitly temperature-dependent. We determine self-consistently the renormalized dispersion and the staggered magnetization as a function of temperature. Our calculations can be applied to other antiferromagnetic lattices.