Unusual heat transport in underdoped cuprates

Abstract

Within the t-J model, the heat transport of the underdoped cuprates is studied based on the fermion-spin theory. It is shown that at low temperatures the energy dependence of the thermal conductivity spectrum consists of two bands. The higher-energy band shows a weak peak, while the low-energy peak is located at a finite energy. This high-energy broad band is severely suppressed with increasing temperatures, and vanishes at higher temperature. It is also shown that the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity increases monotonously with increasing temperatures, in agreement with experiments.