2014/01/21 by A. Ruiz, Antonia Ruiz, Daniel Alonso +2 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Anisotropy #Heat current #Heat transfer #Ion #Ion trap #Ion trapping #Materials science #Non-equilibrium thermodynamics #Optics #Phase (matter) #Phase transition #Physics #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #Thermal properties of materials #Thermodynamics #Zigzag #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.89.214305
published as Phys. Rev. B 89, 214305 (2014) · 5+2 pp, 6 figures
arxiv created 2014/01/21 · openalex publication_date 2014/06/13 · arxiv updated 2014/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We analyze the heat transport in an ion chain that is confined in a strongly anisotropic Paul trap. To drive a heat current across the chain different pairs of counterpropagating laser beams are applied to the ions on the edges. The lasers behave as heat reservoirs operating at different temperatures, and a nonequilibrium heat flow can be sustained. The control of the spatial distribution of the ions in the chain by variation of the trapping frequencies makes ion chains an ideal testbed to study heat transport properties in finite open systems of low dimensionality with tunable nonlinearities. We explore heat transport across a structural phase transition between the linear and zigzag configurations, identifying the condition for optimal heat transport.