Solitonic Josephson thermal transport

TL;DR

This paper investigates how solitons in a long Josephson junction can coherently transport heat, leading to temperature peaks and potential applications as a superconducting thermal router with controllable heat flow.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to controlling thermal transport using solitons in Josephson junctions, demonstrating their effect on heat current and temperature distribution.

Findings

Solitons increase heat current in the junction.

Temperature peaks up to ~56 mK observed at soliton locations.

The system exhibits topological robustness of solitons.

Abstract

We explore the coherent thermal transport sustained by solitons through a long Josephson junction, as a thermal gradient across the system is established. We observe that a soliton causes the heat current through the system to increase. Correspondingly, the junction warms up in correspondence of the soliton, with temperature peaks up to, e.g., approximately 56 mK for a realistic Nb-based proposed setup at a bath temperature Tbath = 4.2 K. The thermal effects on the dynamics of the soliton are also discussed. Markedly, this system inherits the topological robustness of the solitons. In view of these results, the proposed device can effectively find an application as a superconducting thermal router in which the thermal transport can be locally mastered through solitonic excitations, which positions can be externally controlled through a magnetic field and a bias current.