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Updated: Apr 11, 2026

Characterization of Thermal Transport in One-dimensional Solid Materials
Published on: January 26, 2014
Thermal vector potential theory of transport induced by a temperature gradient
1RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan.
Abstract:
A microscopic formalism to calculate thermal transport coefficients is presented based on a thermal vector potential, whose time derivative is related to a thermal force. The formalism is free from the unphysical divergences reported to arise when Luttinger's formalism is applied naively, because the equilibrium ("diamagnetic") currents are treated consistently. The mathematical structure for the thermal transport coefficients is shown to be identical with that for the electric ones if the electric charge is replaced by the energy. The results indicate that the thermal vector potential couples to the energy current via the minimal coupling.
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