Berry phases and the intrinsic thermal Hall effect in high temperature cuprate superconductors

The Bogoliubov quasiparticles move in a practically uniform magnetic field in the vortex state of high temperature cuprate superconductors. Do the quasiparticles experience a Lorentz force when set in motion by an externally applied heat current ${\bf j}_Q$, bending their trajectories and causing the temperature gradient perpendicular to ${\bf j}_Q$ and the applied field ${\bf H}$, or is the thermal Hall effect a consequence of Berry phases as in an intrinsic anomalous Hall effect of a semiconductor/metal with spin-orbit coupling? Here we show that it is the latter, and for the first time, calculate the temperature, ${\bf H}$-field and the $d$-wave pairing gap $Δ$ dependence of the intrinsic thermal Hall conductivity, $κ_{xy}$. We find that the intrinsic contribution to $κ_{xy}$ displays a rapid onset with increasing temperature, which compares favourably with existing experiments at high ${\bf H}$-fields on the highest purity samples. This finding may help to settle a much-debated question of the bulk value of the pairing strength in cuprate superconductors in magnetic field.

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