Transient localization from fractionalization: vanishingly small heat conductivity in gapless quantum magnets
The study investigates why some gapless quantum magnets show vanishingly small heat conductivity, challenging conventional explanations involving defects. It finds that this suppression is an intrinsic property arising from fractionalization—the way spins break into spinons and visons—where heavy visons act as quasi-static disorder, transiently localizing the light spinons without needing external impurities.