Ballistic magnon transport and phonon scattering in the antiferromagnet Nd2CuO4.

The thermal conductivity of the antiferromagnet Nd2CuO4 was measured down to 50 mK. Using the spin-flop transition to switch on and off the acoustic Nd magnons, we can reliably separate the magnon and phonon contributions to heat transport. We find that magnons travel ballistically below 0.5 K, with a thermal conductivity growing as T3, from which we extract their velocity. We show that the rate of scattering of acoustic magnons by phonons grows as T3, and the scattering of phonons by magnons peaks at twice the average Nd magnon frequency.