Interacting topological magnons in the Kitaev-Heisenberg honeycomb ferromagnet with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Abstract: The study of the Heisenberg-Kitaev honeycomb ferromagnets has recently drawn attention because of their rich topological properties. Topological phase transitions may arise when there exist two or more distinct topological phases, and they are often revealed by a gap-closing phenomenon. In this work, we investigate the magnonic properties of honeycomb ferromagnets exhibiting Kitaev and DMI interactions in the presence of a Heisenberg exchange and magnetocrystalline anisotropy exposed to a magnetic field. We employ the Self-Consistent Renormalization (SCR) spin wave theory to investigate the effects of magnon-magnon interactions (MMIs) and thermal fluctuations on the properties of magnons. Our findings demonstrate that the magnon system undergoes topological phase transitions driven by temperature and magnetic fields, which are attributed to MMIs. Specifically, as the temperature rises, the magnon band gap at the Dirac points closes and reopens at the critical temperature Tc , which is below the Curie temperature. By showing that the Chern numbers of the magnonic bands are distinct above and below Tc , we confirm that the gap-closing phenomenon is indeed a signature for the topological phase transitions. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that the thermal Hall conductivity in the magnonic system exhibits a sign reversal at Tc , which can serve as an experimental probe of its topological nature.