Thermal Hall conductivity with sign change in the Heisenberg–Kitaev kagome magnet

The Heisenberg-Kitaev (HK) model on various lattices have attracted a lot of attention because they may lead to exotic states such as quantum spin liquid and topological orders. The rare-earth-based kagome lattice (KL) compounds $\rm{Mg_2RE_3Sb_3O_{14}}$ $\rm{(RE=Gd, Er)}$ and $\rm{(RE=Nd)}$ have ${\bf q=0}$, $120^\circ$ order and canted ferromagnetic (CFM) order, respectively. Interestingly, the HK model on the KL has the same ground state long-range orders. In the theoretical phase diagram, the CFM phase resides in a continuous parameter region and there is no phase change across special parameter points, such as the Kitaev ferromagnetic (KFM) point, the ferromagnetic (FM) point and its dual FM point. However, a ground state property cannot distinguish a system with or without topological nontrivial excitations and related phase transitions. Here, we study the topological magnon excitations and related thermal Hall conductivity in the HK model on the KL with CFM order. The CFM phase can be divided into two regions related by the Klein duality, with the self dual KFM point as their boundary. We find that the scalar spin chirality which is intrinsic in the CFM order changes sign across the KFM point. This leads to the opposite Chern numbers of corresponding magnon bands in the two regions, and also the sign change of the magnon thermal Hall conductivity.