Single-photon heat conduction in electrical circuits

TL;DR

This paper investigates how single-photon excitations in a superconducting microwave cavity facilitate heat transfer between resistors, offering potential for precise thermal management in quantum circuits.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme demonstrating single-photon heat conduction in circuit QED systems, with experimental feasibility and applications in quantum device temperature control.

Findings

Single-photon heat conduction dominates at low temperatures.

The effect is observable with current technology.

Potential applications in quantum environment engineering.

Abstract

We study photonic heat conduction between two resistors coupled weakly to a single superconducting microwave cavity. At low enough temperature, the dominating part of the heat exchanged between the resistors is transmitted by single-photon excitations of the fundamental mode of the cavity. This manifestation of single-photon heat conduction should be experimentally observable with the current state of the art. Our scheme can possibly be utilized in remote interference-free temperature control of electric components and environment engineering for superconducting qubits coupled to cavities.