Energy Transport in Weakly Anharmonic Chains

Abstract

We investigate the energy transport in a one-dimensional lattice of oscillators with a harmonic nearest neighbor coupling and a harmonic plus quartic on-site potential. As numerically observed for particular coupling parameters before, and confirmed by our study, such chains satisfy Fourier's law: a chain of length N coupled to thermal reservoirs at both ends has an average steady state energy current proportional to 1/N. On the theoretical level we employ the Peierls transport equation for phonons and note that beyond a mere exchange of labels it admits nondegenerate phonon collisions. These collisions are responsible for a finite heat conductivity. The predictions of kinetic theory are compared with molecular dynamics simulations. In the range of weak anharmonicity, respectively low temperatures, reasonable agreement is observed.

25 pages, 10 figures

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