Anisotropic Monopole Heat Transport in the Spin-Ice Compound Dy${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$

We report a study of the thermal conductivity $\kappa$ of the spin-ice material Dy${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$. From the anisotropic magnetic-field dependence of \kappa$ and by additional measurements on the phononic reference compounds Y${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$ and DyYTi${}_2$O${}_7$, we are able to separate the phononic and the magnetic contributions to the total heat transport, i.e. ${\kappa }_{ph}$ and ${\kappa }_{mag}$, respectively, which both depend on the magnetic field. The field dependent ${\kappa }_{ph}$ arises from lattice distortions due to magnetic-field induced torques on the non-collinear magnetic moments of the Dy ions. For ${\kappa }_{mag}$, we observe a highly anisotropic magnetic-field dependence, which correlates with the corresponding magnetization data reflecting the different magnetic-field induced spin-ice ground states. The magnitude of ${\kappa }_{mag}$ increases with the degree of the ground-state degeneracy. This anisotropic field dependence as well as various hysteresis effects suggest that ${\kappa }_{mag}$ is essentially determined by the mobility of the magnetic monopole excitations in spin ice.