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  • Letter

Symmetry-enforced third-order nonlinear thermal Hall effects in altermagnets

Yun-Mei Li*, Jiacheng Yao, Hua Wang, and Kai Chang†

  • *Contact author: yunmeili@zju.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: kchang@zju.edu.cn

Phys. Rev. B 114, L140406 – Published 15 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/5bns-qkgl

Abstract

The thermal Hall effect (THE) is a powerful probe of material properties, even in insulators. Here, we investigate the thermal response of altermagnets by developing a theory on Berry curvature driven nonlinear THE from both electrons and magnons. We identify symmetry conditions under which the third-order THE dominates while linear and second-order contributions vanish. Notably, d-wave and i-wave altermagnets with out-of-plane Néel order satisfy these conditions, whereas in-plane order yields a dominant linear THE. Using KV2Se2O (a d-wave altermagnetic metal) and MnF2 (an altermagnetic insulator) as concrete examples, we show nonzero third-order nonlinear THE from electrons and magnons, respectively, both exhibiting a π-periodic dependence on the direction of temperature gradient. These symmetry-guaranteed Berry curvature phenomena provide a diagnostic for altermagnetism in candidate materials and enable the determination of the Néel vector orientation.

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