Magnon Damping Minimum and Logarithmic Scaling in a Kondo-Heisenberg Model

Abstract

Recently, an anomalous temperature evolution of spin wave excitations has been observed in a van der Waals metallic ferromagnet Fe$_3$GeTe$_2$ (FGT) [S. Bao, et al., Phys. Rev. X 12, 011022 (2022)], whose theoretical understanding yet remains elusive. Here we study the spin dynamics of a ferromagnetic Kondo-Heisenberg lattice model at finite temperature, and propose a mechanism of magnon damping that explains the intriguing experimental results. In particular, we find the magnon damping rate $\gamma(T)$ firstly decreases as temperature lowers, due to the reduced magnon-magnon scatterings. It then reaches a minimum at $T_{\rm d}^*$, and rises up again following a logarithmic scaling $\gamma(T) \sim \ln{(T_0/T)}$ (with $T_0$ a constant) for $T < T_{\rm d}^*$, which can be attributed to electron-magnon scatterings of spin-flip type. Moreover, we obtain the phase diagram containing the ferromagnetic and Kondo insulator phases by varying the Kondo coupling, which may be relevant for experiments on pressured FGT. The presence of a magnon damping minimum and logarithmic scaling at low temperature indicates the emergence of the Kondo effect reflected in the collective excitations of local moments in a Kondo lattice system.