Thermal Transistor Effect in Quantum Systems

Antonio Mandarino (1, 2) , Karl Joulain (3) , Melisa Domínguez Gómez (4, 3) , Bruno Bellomo (1)

1 UTINAM - Univers, Transport, Interfaces, Nanostructures, Atmosphère et environnement, Molécules (UMR 6213)
2 UG - University of Gdańsk
3 TNR - Thermique aux Nano échelles et Rayonnement [Institut Pprime]
4 Universidad de Antioquia = University of Antioquia [Medellín, Colombia]

We study a quantum system composed of three interacting qubits, each coupled to a different thermal reservoir. We show how to engineer it to build a quantum device analogous to an electronic bipolar transistor. We outline how the interaction among the qubits plays a crucial role for the appearance of the effect, also linking it to the characteristics of system-bath interactions that govern the decoherence and dissipation mechanisms of the system. By comparison with previous proposals, our model extends the regime of parameters where the transistor effect occurs, the effect being more robust with respect to small variations of the coupling parameters. Moreover, our model appears to be more realistic and directly connected in terms of potential implementations to feasible setups in the domain of quantum spin chains, such as molecular nanomagnets.

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]

Antonio Mandarino, Karl Joulain, Melisa Domínguez Gómez, Bruno Bellomo. Thermal Transistor Effect in Quantum Systems. Physical Review Applied, 2021, 16 (3), pp.034026. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevApplied.16.034026⟩. ⟨hal-03543570⟩