Analytic solution for heat flow through a general harmonic network

We present an analytic expression for the heat current through a general harmonic network coupled with Ohmic reservoirs. We use a method that enables us to express the stationary state of the network in terms of the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of a generalized cubic eigenvalue problem. In this way,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Freitas, José Nahuel, Paz, Juan Pablo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/18244
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/18244
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Heat transport
Fourier Law
Quantum transport
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.3
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descripción
Sumario:We present an analytic expression for the heat current through a general harmonic network coupled with Ohmic reservoirs. We use a method that enables us to express the stationary state of the network in terms of the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of a generalized cubic eigenvalue problem. In this way, we obtain exact formulas for the heat current and the local temperature inside the network. Our method does not rely on the usual assumptions of weak coupling to the environments or on the existence of an infinite cutoff in the environmental spectral densities. We use this method to study nonequilibrium processes without the weak coupling and Markovian approximations. As a first application of our method, we revisit the problem of heat conduction in two- and three-dimensional crystals with binary mass disorder. We complement previous results showing that for small systems the scaling of the heat current with the system size greatly depends on the strength of the interaction between system and reservoirs. This somewhat counterintuitive result seems not to have been noticed before.