Intrinsic Magnon Orbital Hall Effect in Honeycomb Antiferromagnets

We theoretically investigate the transport of magnon orbitals in a honeycomb antiferromagnet [1]. We find that the magnon orbital Berry curvature is finite even without spin-orbit coupling and thus the resultant magnon orbital Hall effect is an intrinsic property of the honeycomb antiferromagnet rooted only in the exchange interaction and the lattice structure. Due to the intrinsic nature of the magnon orbital Hall effect, the magnon orbital Nernst conductivity is estimated to be orders of magnitude larger than the predicted values of the magnon spin Nernst conductivity that requires finite spin-orbit coupling. For the experimental detection of the predicted magnon orbital Hall effect, we invoke the magnetoelectric effect that couples the magnon orbital and the electric polarization, which allows us to detect the magnon orbital accumulation through the local voltage measurement. Our results pave a way for a deeper understanding of the topological transport of the magnon orbitals and also its utilization for low-power magnon-based orbitronics, namely magnon orbitronics.