Thermoelectric phenomena in disordered open quantum systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates thermoelectric transport in disordered quantum systems using a stochastic approach, revealing the impact of boundary conditions and bath properties on transport behavior at low temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic quantum framework to analyze thermoelectric phenomena in disordered open systems, highlighting the significance of boundary conditions and bath spectral properties.

Findings

Transport asymptotics in open and closed systems are similar for these models.

Thermoelectric transport magnitude is highly sensitive to boundary conditions.

Open quantum system theories are crucial for understanding energy transport in disordered systems.

Abstract

Using a stochastic quantum approach, we study thermoelectric transport phenomena at low temperatures in disordered electrical systems connected to external baths. We discuss three different models of one-dimensional disordered electrons, namely the Anderson model of random on-site energies, the random-dimer model and the random-hopping model - also relevant for random-spin models. We find that although the asymptotic behavior of transport in open systems is closely related to that in closed systems for these noninteracting models, the magnitude of thermoelectric transport strongly depends on the boundary conditions and the baths spectral properties. This shows the importance of employing theories of open quantum systems in the study of energy transport.