• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.105.104405
• Corpus ID: 244729174

Thermal conductivity of square ice

@article{Sutcliffe2022ThermalCO,
  title={Thermal conductivity of square ice},
  author={Ruairidh Sutcliffe and Jeffrey G. Rau},
  journal={Physical Review B},
  year={2022}
}

• Ruairidh Sutcliffe, J. Rau
• Published 29 November 2021
• Physics
• Physical Review B

We investigate thermal transport in square ice, a two-dimensional analogue of spin ice, exploring the role played by emergent magnetic monopoles in transporting energy. Using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations based on energy preserving extensions of single-spin-flip dynamics, we explicitly compute the (longitudinal) thermal conductivity, κ, over a broad range of temperatures. We use two methods to determine κ: a measurement of the energy current between thermal baths at the boundaries, and the Green-Kubo formula, yielding quantitatively consistent values for the thermal conductivity. We interpret these results in terms of transport of energy by diffusion of magnetic monopoles. We relate the thermal diffusivity, κ/C where C is the heat capacity, to the diffusion constant of an isolated monopole, showing that the subdiffusive monopole implies κ/C vanishes at zero temperature. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results for thermal transport in three-dimensional spin ice, in spin ice materials such as Dy2Ti2O7 and Ho2Ti2O7, and outline some open questions for thermal transport in highly frustrated magnets.