RESUMO
In this study, we investigate thermal transport in d-dimensional quantum harmonic lattices coupled to self-consistent reservoirs. The d-dimensional system is treated as a set of Klein-Gordon chains by exploiting an orthogonal transformation. For generality, the self-energy that describes the reservoir-system coupling is assumed to be a power function of energy Σâ-iÉ^{n}, where n is limited to odd integers because of the reality condition. Total momentum conservation is violated for n=1 but otherwise preserved. In this approach, we show that for n=1, thermal conductivity remains finite in the thermodynamic limit and normal transport takes place for an arbitrary value of d. For n=3,5,7,â¯, however, thermal conductivity diverges and thermal transport becomes anomalous as long as d
RESUMO
Fictitious stochastic reservoirs incorporate scattering and dephasing mechanisms into the system in contact with these reservoirs. The reservoir-system coupling is described by the related self-energy in terms of the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism or equivalently the quantum Langevin equation formalism. In this study, we investigate thermal transport in a finite segment of an infinitely extended quantum harmonic chain with an equal self-energy at each site by using the self-consistent reservoir approach. In this setup, the entire system is lattice translation invariant so that mismatched boundaries are excluded from the model. Solving the Landauer-Büttiker equations under the self-consistent adiabatic condition, we quantitatively elucidate a thermally induced crossover of ballistic-to-diffusive transport and its scaling relation prescribed by a temperature-dependent mean free path. It is also shown that normal transport emerges in the diffusive limit for a linear self-energy, while nonlinear higher-order ones generically lead to anomalous transport. Physical implications of these observations are discussed in terms of the persistence of a massless Goldstone mode as well as the conservation of total linear momentum.