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Heat transport of the spin-ice materials Ho$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$ and Dy$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$

The elementary excitations of the spin-ice materials Ho$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$ and Dy$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$ in zero field can be described as independent magnetic monopoles. We investigate the influence of these exotic excitations on the heat transport by measuring the magnetic-field dependent thermal conductivity $κ$. Additional measurements on the highly dilute reference compounds HoYTi$_2$O$_7$ and DyYTi$_2$O$_7$ enable us to separate $κ$ into a sum of phononic ($κ_{ph}$) and magnetic ($κ_{mag}$) contributions. For both spin-ice materials, we derive significant zero-field contributions $κ_{mag}$, which are rapidly suppressed in finite magnetic fields. Moreover, $κ_{mag}$ sensitively depends on the scattering of phonons by magnetic excitations, which is rather different for the Ho- and the Dy-based materials and, as a further consequence, the respective magnetic-field dependent changes $κ_{ph}(B)$ are even of opposite signs.