No Arabic abstract
Heat transport in one-dimensional (1D) momentum-conserving lattices is generally assumed to be anomalous, thus yielding a power-law divergence of thermal conductivity with system length. However, whether heat transport in two-dimensional (2D) system is anomalous or not is still on debate because of the difficulties involved in experimental measurements or due to the insufficiently large simulation size. Here, we simulate energy and momentum diffusion in the 2D nonlinear lattices using the method of fluctuation correlation functions. Our simulations confirm that energy diffusion in the 2D momentum-conserving lattices is anomalous and can be well described by the L{e}vy-stable distribution. We also find that the disappear of side peaks of heat mode may suggest a weak coupling between heat mode and sound mode in the 2D nonlinear system. It is also observed that the harmonic interactions in the 2D nonlinear lattices can accelerate the energy diffusion. Contrary to the hypothesis of 1D system, we clarify that anomalous heat transport in the 2D momentum-conserving system cannot be corroborated by the momentum superdiffusion any more. Moreover, as is expected, lattices with a nonlinear on-site potential exhibit normal energy diffusion, independent of the dimension. Our findings offer some valuable insights into the mechanism of thermal transport in 2D system.
We study anomalous heat conduction and anomalous diffusion in low dimensional systems ranging from nonlinear lattices, single walled carbon nanotubes, to billiard gas channels. We find that in all discussed systems, the anomalous heat conductivity can be connected with the anomalous diffusion, namely, if energy diffusion is $sigma^2(t)equiv <Delta x^2> =2Dt^{alpha} (0<alphale 2)$, then the thermal conductivity can be expressed in terms of the system size $L$ as $kappa = cL^{beta}$ with $beta=2-2/alpha$. This result predicts that a normal diffusion ($alpha =1$) implies a normal heat conduction obeying the Fourier law ($beta=0$), a superdiffusion ($alpha>1$) implies an anomalous heat conduction with a divergent thermal conductivity ($beta>0$), and more interestingly, a subdiffusion ($alpha <1$) implies an anomalous heat conduction with a convergent thermal conductivity ($beta<0$), consequently, the system is a thermal insulator in the thermodynamic limit. Existing numerical data support our theoretical prediction.
The problem of characterizing low-temperature spin dynamics in antiferromagnetic spin chains has so far remained elusive. We reinvestigate it by focusing on isotropic antiferromagnetic chains whose low-energy effective field theory is governed by the quantum non-linear sigma model. We outline an exact non-perturbative theoretical approach to analyse the low-temperature behaviour in the vicinity of non-magnetized states, and obtain explicit expressions for the spin diffusion constant and the NMR relaxation rate, which we compare with previous theoretical results in the literature. Surprisingly, in SU(2)-invariant spin chains in the vicinity of half-filling we find a crossover from the semi-classical regime to a strongly interacting quantum regime characterized by zero spin Drude weight and diverging spin conductivity, indicating super-diffusive spin dynamics. The dynamical exponent of spin fluctuations is argued to belong to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class. Furthermore, by employing numerical tDMRG simulations, we find robust evidence that the anomalous spin transport persists also at high temperatures, irrespectively of the spectral gap and integrability of the model.
Recent investigations call attention to the dynamics of anomalous diffusion and its connection with basic principles of statistical mechanics. We present here a short review of those ideas and their implications.
This study is concerned with destruction of Anderson localization by a nonlinearity of the power-law type. We suggest using a nonlinear Schrodinger model with random potential on a lattice that quadratic nonlinearity plays a dynamically very distinguished role in that it is the only type of power nonlinearity permitting an abrupt localization-delocalization transition with unlimited spreading already at the delocalization border. For super-quadratic nonlinearity the borderline spreading corresponds to diffusion processes on finite clusters. We have proposed an analytical method to predict and explain such transport processes. Our method uses a topological approximation of the nonlinear Anderson model and, if the exponent of the power nonlinearity is either integer or half-integer, will yield the wanted value of the transport exponent via a triangulation procedure in an Euclidean mapping space. A kinetic picture of the transport arising from these investigations uses a fractional extension of the diffusion equation to fractional derivatives over the time, signifying non-Markovian dynamics with algebraically decaying time correlations.
We address the problem of heat conduction in 1-D nonlinear chains; we show that, acting on the parameter which controls the strength of the on site potential inside a segment of the chain, we induce a transition from conducting to insulating behavior in the whole system. Quite remarkably, the same transition can be observed by increasing the temperatures of the thermal baths at both ends of the chain by the same amount. The control of heat conduction by nonlinearity opens the possibility to propose new devices such as a thermal rectifier.