Thermal conductivity of IPA-CuCl_3: Evidences of ballistic magnon transport and limited applicability of the Bose-Einstein condensation model

The heat transport of the spin-gapped material (CH_3)_2CHNH_3CuCl_3 (IPA-CuCl_3), a candidate quantum magnet with Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), is studied at ultra-low temperatures and in high magnetic fields. Due to the presence of the spin gap, the zero-field thermal conductivity (\kappa) is purely phononic and shows a ballistic behavior at T < 1 K. When the gap is closed by magnetic field at H = H_{c1}, where a long-range antiferromanetic (AF) order of Cu^{2+} moments is developed, the magnons contribute significantly to heat transport and exhibit a ballistic T^3 behavior at T < 600 mK. In addition, the low-T \kappa(H) isotherms show sharp peaks at H_{c1}, which indicates a gap re-opening in the AF state (H > H_{c1}) and demonstrates limited applicability of the BEC model to IPA-CuCl_3.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Low-temperature thermal conductivity of Dy_2Ti_2O_7 and Yb_2Ti_2O_7 single crystals

We study the low-temperature thermal conductivity (\kappa) of Dy_2Ti_2O_7 and Yb_2Ti_2O_7 single crystals in magnetic fields up to 14 T along the [111], [100] and [110] directions. The main experimental findings for Dy_2Ti_2O_7 are: (i) the low-T \kappa(H) isotherms exhibit not only the step-like decreases at the low-field (< 2 T) magnetic transitions but also obvious field dependencies in high fields (> 7 T); (ii) at T \le 0.5 K, the \kappa(H) curves show anisotropic irreversibility in low fields, that is, the \kappa(H) hysteresis locates at the first-order transition with H \parallel [100] and [110], while it locates between two successive transitions with H \parallel [111]; (iii) the \kappa in the hysteresis loops for H \parallel [100] and [110] show an extremely slow relaxation with the time constant of \sim 1000 min. The main experimental findings for Yb_2Ti_2O_7 are: (i) the zero-field \kappa(T) show a kink-like decrease at the first-order transition (\sim 200 mK) with decreasing temperature; (ii) the low-T \kappa(H) isotherms show a decrease in low field and a large enhancement in high fields; (iii) the low-T \kappa(H) curves show a sharp minimum at 0.5 T for H \parallel [110] and [111]. The roles of monopole excitations, field-induced transitions, spin fluctuations and magnetoelastic coupling are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.