Phonon Hall Viscosity and the Intrinsic Thermal Hall Effect of $α$-RuCl$_3$

Abstract: The thermal Hall effect has been observed in a wide variety of magnetic insulators, yet its origin remains controversial. While some studies attribute it to intrinsic origins -- such as heat carriers with Berry curvature -- others propose extrinsic origins -- such as heat carriers scattering off crystal defects. Even the nature of the heat carriers is unknown: magnons, phonons, and fractionalized spin excitations have all been proposed. These questions are significant for the study of quantum spin liquids and are particularly relevant for $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$, where a quantized thermal Hall effect has been attributed to Majorana edge modes. Here, we use ultrasonic measurements of the acoustic Faraday effect to demonstrate that the phonons in $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ have Hall viscosity -- a non-dissipative viscosity that rotates phonon polarizations and deflects phonon heat currents. We show that phonon Hall viscosity produces an intrinsic thermal Hall effect that quantitatively accounts for a significant fraction of the measured thermal Hall effect in $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$. More broadly, we demonstrate that the acoustic Faraday effect is a powerful tool for detecting phonon Hall viscosity and the associated phonon Berry curvature, offering a new way to uncover and study exotic states of matter that elude conventional experiments.