Quantum heat transfer: A Born Oppenheimer method

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Born-Oppenheimer formalism for quantum thermal transport in nanoscale systems, effectively capturing off-resonant and tunneling regimes with a generalized Landauer approach.

Contribution

It presents a novel Born-Oppenheimer based method for modeling quantum heat transfer, extending the Landauer formula to include nonlinear and tunneling effects.

Findings

Reduces to standard Landauer formula in harmonic limit

Captures multiphonon tunneling effects in nonlinear regimes

Applicable to off-resonant and low-temperature heat transfer

Abstract

We develop a Born-Oppenheimer type formalism for the description of quantum thermal transport along hybrid nanoscale objects. Our formalism is suitable for treating heat transfer in the off-resonant regime, where e.g., the relevant vibrational modes of the interlocated molecule are high relative to typical bath frequencies, and at low temperatures when tunneling effects dominate. A general expression for the thermal energy current is accomplished, in the form of a generalized Landauer formula. In the harmonic limit this expression reduces to the standard Landauer result for heat transfer, while in the presence of nonlinearities multiphonon tunneling effects are realized.