Transport in honeycomb lattice with random $\pi$-fluxes: implications for low-temperature thermal transport in the Kitaev spin liquids

Abstract

Motivated by the thermal transport problem in the Kitaev spin liquids, we consider a nearest-neighbor tight-binding model on the honeycomb lattice in the presence of random uncorrelated $\pi$-fluxes. We employ different numerical methods to study its transport properties near half-filling. The zero-temperature DC conductivity away from the Dirac point is found to be quadratic in Fermi momentum and inversely proportional to the flux density. Localization due to the random $\pi$-fluxes is observed and the localization length is extracted. Our results imply that, for realistic system size, the thermal conductivity of a pure Kitaev spin liquid diverges as $\kappa_\text{K}\sim T^3 e^{\Delta_v/k_BT}$ when $k_B T\ll \Delta_v$, and suggest the possible occurrence of strong Majorana localization $\kappa_\text{K}/T\ll k_B^2/2\pi\hbar$ when $k_B T\sim \Delta_v$, where $\Delta_v$ is the vison gap.