Eur. Phys. J. B (2013) 86: 1
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-30793-6

Regular Article

Thermal transport through a one-dimensional quantum spin-1/2 chain heterostructure: The role of three-site spin interaction

College of Sciences, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, P.R. China

^a e-mail: gwjneu@163.com

Received: 31 August 2012
Received in final form: 18 October 2012
Published online: 26 December 2012

Abstract

We study the thermal transport through a quantum spin-1/2 chain heterostructure, which consists of a finite-size chain with two-site isotropic XY interaction and three-site XZX+YZY interaction coupled at its ends to two semi-infinite isotropic XY chains. After performing Jordan-Wigner transformation, we map the original spin Hamiltonian into a fermion Hamiltonian and express the heat current with a nonequilibrium Green’s function formalism. Then, the heat current as functions of the structure parameters are studied in detail. As a result, we observe that a finite magnetic field applied at the finite-size chain can efficiently induce the heat current asymmetry with ΔΩ (ΔΩ is the magnetic field difference between the finite-size chain and the semi-infinite chains). Accordingly, such a magnetic field can be viewed as a switch in manipulating the heat current.