Phonons behave like Electrons in the Thermal Hall Effect of the Cuprates

Abstract: The thermal Hall effect, which arises when heat flows transverse to an applied thermal gradient, has become an important observable in the study of quantum materials. Recent experiments found a large thermal Hall conductivity $\kappa_{xy}$ in many high-temperature cuprate superconductors, including deep inside the Mott insulator, but the underlying mechanism remains unknown. Here, we uncover a surprising linear temperature dependence for the inverse thermal Hall resistivity, $1/\rho_H=-\kappa_{xx}^2/\kappa_{xy}$, in the Mott insulating cuprates $\mathrm{La_2CuO_4}$ and $\mathrm{Sr_2CuO_2Cl_2}$. We also find this linear scaling in the pseudogap state of Nd-LSCO in the out-of-plane direction, highlighting the importance of phonons. On the electron-doped side, the linear inverse thermal Hall signal emerges in NCCO and PCCO at various dopings, including in the strange metal. Although such dependence arises in the simple Drude model for itinerant electrons, its origin is unclear in strongly correlated Mott insulating or pseudogap states. We perform a Boltzmann analysis for phonons that incorporates skew-scattering, and we are able to identify regimes where a linear $T$ inverse Hall resistivity appears. Finally, we suggest future experiments that would further our fundamental understanding of heat transport in the cuprates, and other quantum materials.