Heat Current Properties of a Rotor Chain Type Model with Next-Nearest-Neighbor Interactions

TL;DR

This paper investigates heat flow in a rotor chain model with next-nearest-neighbor interactions, revealing that such interactions can increase thermal conductivity at low temperatures and enable thermal rectification in graded systems.

Contribution

It demonstrates that adding next-nearest-neighbor interactions enhances thermal conductivity and induces thermal rectification, contrasting with previous beliefs about long-range interactions causing insulation.

Findings

Next-nearest-neighbor interactions increase low-temperature thermal conductivity.

Thermal rectification observed in graded rotor chain systems.

Long-range interactions do not necessarily lead to insulating behavior.

Abstract

In this article, to study the heat flow behavior, we perform analytical investigations in a rotor chain type model (involving inner stochastic noises) with next and next-nearest-neighbor interactions. It is known in the literature that the chain rotor model with long range interactions presents an insulating phase for the heat conductivity. But we show, in contrast with such a behavior, that the addition of a next-nearest-neighbor potential increases the thermal conductivity, at least in the low temperature regime, indicating that the insulating property is a genuine long range interaction effect. We still establish, now by numerical computations, the existence of a thermal rectification in systems with graded structures.