A Nonequilibrium Variational Polaron Theory to Study Quantum Heat Transport
Author(s)
Hsieh, Chang Yu; Cao, Jianshu
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We propose a nonequilibrium variational polaron transformation, based on an ansatz for nonequilibrium steady state with an effective temperature, to study quantum heat transport at the nanoscale. By combining the variational polaron transformed master equation with the full counting statistics, we extended the applicability of the polaron-based framework to study nonequilibrium process beyond the super-Ohmic bath models. Previously, the polaron-based framework for quantum heat transport reduces exactly to the non-interacting blip approximation (NIBA) formalism for Ohmic bath models due to the issue of the infrared divergence associated with the full polaron transformation. The nonequilibrium variational method allows us to appropriately treat the infrared divergence in the low-frequency bath modes and explicitly include cross-bath correlation effects. These improvements provide more accurate calculation of heat current than the NIBA formalism for Ohmic bath models. We illustrate the aforementioned improvements with the nonequilibrium spin-boson model in this work and quantitatively demonstrate the cross-bath correlation, current turnover, and rectification effects in quantum heat transfer.
Date issued
2019-06Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of ChemistryJournal
Journal of physical chemistry. C
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Citation
Hsieh, Chang Yu et al. “A Nonequilibrium Variational Polaron Theory to Study Quantum Heat Transport.” Journal of physical chemistry. C, vol. 123, no. 28, 2019, pp. 17196-17204 © 2019 The Author(s)
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
1932-7447