Superballistic transport of thermal photons in confined many-body systems

TL;DR

This paper predicts a superballistic heat transport regime in plasmonic nanoparticle chains within cavities, surpassing traditional ballistic limits through cavity-mediated long-range interactions, with implications for ultrafast thermal management.

Contribution

It introduces a novel superballistic heat transfer regime in confined many-body systems, driven by cavity-guided mode amplification of long-range interactions.

Findings

Effective thermal conductivity scales as L^1.5

Superballistic regime exceeds traditional ballistic limits

Cavity modes mediate long-range interactions enhancing heat transfer

Abstract

Ballistic transport, realized when the system size is smaller than the mean free path of energy carriers, is traditionally regarded as the ultimate limit for energy transfer. Here, we predict a superballistic radiative heat transport regime that surpasses this limit in dilute chains of plasmonic nanoparticles confined within cavities. This anomalous regime exhibits superlinear scaling of the effective thermal conductivity (k ~L^1.5) and originates from the amplification of long-range interactions mediated by cavity-guided modes. Our results establish a framework for ultrafast photonic heat transport and open pathways for thermal management, information processing and energy transfer in quantum and nanoscale systems.