Violation of the magnonic Wiedemann-Franz law in the strong nonlinear regime

The celebrated Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law, which governs the relation between charge and heat transport traces back to the experimental discovery in 1853 by Wiedemann and Franz. Despite the fundamental difference of the quantum-statistical properties between fermions and bosons, the linear-in-T behavior of the WF law at low temperatures has recently been found to be the universal property by the discovery of the WF law for magnon transport. However, the WF law is for the linear response, and whether or not the universal law is valid even in the nonlinear regime of Bose systems remains an open issue. Here we provide a solution to this fundamental challenge. We show that the ratio of the thermal to spin transport coefficient of magnons in topologically trivial insulating magnets exhibits a different behavior from the linear response and the universal law breaks down in the strong nonlinear regime. This finding is within experimental reach with current device and measurement technologies. Our discovery is the key ingredient in magnon-based spintronics, in the evaluation of the figure of merit for thermomagnetic conversion elements of spintronics devices.

Automated summary

This article investigates the relationship between heat and charge transport for fermions and bosons, and whether there is a universal law in the nonlinear regime. The study finds that in topologically trivial insulating magnets, the ratio of the thermal to spin transport coefficient of magnons exhibits different behavior in the strong nonlinear regime compared to the linear response.