31 research outputs found
Ambivalence of the anisotropy of the vortex lattice in an anisotropic type-II superconductor
We present a geometry-based discussion of possible vortex configurations in
the mixed state of anisotropic type-II superconductors. It is shown that, if
energy considerations assign six nearest neighbors to each vortex, two distinct
modifications of the vortex lattice are possible. It is expected that certain
conditions lead to a first order phase transition from one modification of the
vortex lattice to the other upon varying the external magnetic field.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure
Thermal conductivity of anisotropic and frustrated spin-1/2 chains
We analyze the thermal conductivity of anisotropic and frustrated spin-1/2
chains using analytical and numerical techniques. This includes mean-field
theory based on the Jordan-Wigner transformation, bosonization, and exact
diagonalization of systems with N<=18 sites. We present results for the
temperature dependence of the zero-frequency weight of the conductivity for
several values of the anisotropy \Delta. In the gapless regime, we show that
the mean-field theory compares well to known results and that the
low-temperature limit is correctly described by bosonization. In the
antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic gapped regime, we analyze the temperature
dependence of the thermal conductivity numerically. The convergence of the
finite-size data is remarkably good in the ferromagnetic case. Finally, we
apply our numerical method and mean-field theory to the frustrated chain where
we find a good agreement of these two approaches on finite systems. Our
numerical data do not yield evidence for a diverging thermal conductivity in
the thermodynamic limit in case of the antiferromagnetic gapped regime of the
frustrated chain.Comment: 4 pages REVTeX4 including 6 figures; published version, main
modification: added emphasis that the data of our Fig. 3 point to a vanishing
of the thermal Drude weight in the thermodynamic limit in this cas
Thermal conductivity via magnetic excitations in spin-chain materials
We discuss the recent progress and the current status of experimental
investigations of spin-mediated energy transport in spin-chain and spin-ladder
materials with antiferromagnetic coupling. We briefly outline the central
results of theoretical studies on the subject but focus mainly on recent
experimental results that were obtained on materials which may be regarded as
adequate physical realizations of the idealized theoretical model systems. Some
open questions and unsettled issues are also addressed.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
Thermal Conductivity of Spin-1/2 Chains
We study the low-temperature transport properties of clean one-dimensional
spin-1/2 chains coupled to phonons. Due to the presence of approximate
conservation laws, the heat current decays very slowly giving rise to an
exponentially large heat conductivity, . As a result of an
interplay of Umklapp scattering and spinon-phonon coupling, the characteristic
energy scale turns out to be of order , where is
the Debye energy, rather than the magnetic exchange interaction -- in
agreement with recent measurements in SrCuO compounds. A large magnetic field
strongly affects the heat transport by two distinct mechanisms. First, it
induces a LINEAR spinon--phonon coupling, which alters the nature of the fixed point: the elementary excitations of the system are COMPOSITE
SPINON-PHONON objects. Second, the change of the magnetization and the
corresponding change of the wave vector of the spinons strongly affects the way
in which various Umklapp processes can relax the heat current, leading to a
characteristic fractal--like spiky behavior of when plotted as a
function of magnetization at fixed T.Comment: 16 pages, RevTex4, 2 figures included; revised refs. and some useful
comments on experimental relevance. On July 12 2005, added an appendix
correcting an error in the form of the phonon propagator. The main result is
unchange
Diffusive energy transport in the S=1 Haldane chain compound AgVP2S6
We present the results of measurements of the thermal conductivity
of the spin S=1 chain compound AgVP_2S_6 in the temperature range between 2 and
300 K and with the heat flow directed either along or perpendicular to the
chain direction. The analysis of the anisotropy of the heat transport allowed
for the identification of a small but non-negligible magnon contribution
along the chains, superimposed on the dominant phonon contribution
. At temperatures above about 100 K the energy diffusion constant
D_E(T), calculated from the data, exhibits similar features as
the spin diffusion constant D_S(T), previously measured by NMR. In this regime,
the behaviour of both transport parameters is consistent with a diffusion
process that is caused by interactions inherent to one-dimensional S=1 spin
systems.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Magnon Heat Transport in (Sr,La)_14Cu_24O_41
We have measured the thermal heat conductivity kappa of the compounds
Sr_14Cu_24O_41 and Ca_9La_5Cu_24O_41 containing doped and undoped spin ladders,
respectively. We find a huge anisotropy of both, the size and the temperature
dependence of kappa which we interpret in terms of a very large heat
conductivity due to the magnetic excitations of the one-dimensional spin
ladders. This magnon heat conductivity decreases with increasing hole doping of
the ladders. The magnon heat transport is analyzed theoretically using a simple
kinetic model. From this analysis we determine the spin gap and the temperature
dependent mean free path of the magnons which ranges by several thousand
angstroms at low temperature. The relevance of several scattering channels for
the magnon transport is discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Non-zero entropy density in the XY chain out of equilibrium
The von Neumann entropy density of a block of n spins is proved to be
non-zero for large n in the non-equilibrium steady state of the XY chain
constructed by coupling a finite cutout of the chain to the two infinite parts
to its left and right which act as thermal reservoirs at different
temperatures. Moreover, the non-equilibrium density is shown to be strictly
greater than the density in thermal equilibrium
Out of equilibrium correlations in the XY chain
We study the transversal XY spin-spin correlations in the non-equilibrium
steady state constructed in \cite{AP03} and prove their spatial exponential
decay close to equilibrium
Ground state order and spin-lattice coupling in tetrahedral spin systems Cu2Te2O5X2
High-resolution ac susceptibility and thermal conductivity measurement on
Cu2Te2O5X2(X=Br,Cl) single crystals are reported. For Br-sample, sample
dependence prevents to distinguish between possibilities of magnetically
ordered and spin-singlet ground states. In Cl-sample a three-dimensional
transition at 18.5 K is accompanied by almost isotropic behavior of
susceptibility and almost switching behavior of thermal conductivity. Thermal
conductivity studies suggest the presence of a tremendous spin-lattice coupling
characterizing Cl- but not Br-sample. Below the transition Cl-sample is in a
complex magnetic state involving AF order but also the elements consistent with
the presence of a gap in the excitation spectrum.Comment: version accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.B-Rapid Communicatio
Specific heat and thermal conductivity in the vortex state of the two-gap superconductor MgB_2
The specific heat coefficient gamma_s(H) and the electronic thermal
conductivity kappa_{es}(H) are calculated for Abrikosov's vortex lattice by
taking into account the effects of supercurrent flow and Andreev scattering.
First we solve the gap equation for the entire range of magnetic fields. We
take into account vertex corrections due to impurity scattering calculated in
the Born approximation. The function gamma_s(H)/gamma_n increases from zero and
becomes approximately linear above H/H_{c2} \sim 0.1. The dependence on
impurity scattering is substantially reduced by the vertex corrections. The
upward curvature of kappa_{es}(H)/kappa_{en}, which is caused by decreasing
Andreev scattering for increasing field, is reduced for increasing impurity
scattering. We also calculate the temperature dependence of the scattering
rates 1/tau_{ps}(H) of a phonon and 1/tau_{es}(H) of a quasiparticle due to
quasiparticle and phonon scattering, respectively. At low temperatures the
ratio tau_{pn}/tau_{ps}(H) increases rapidly to one as H tends to H_{c2} which
yields a rapid drop in the phononic thermal conductivity kappa_{ph}. Our
results are in qualitative agreement with the experiments on the two-gap
superconductor MgB_2.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, additions to figures 1, 2, and 3. Accepted by
Phys. Rev.