Control of thermal conduction and rectification in a model of complex networks with two asymmetric parts

The controlling of heat flux is an important topic in the field of heat conduction and has potential applications in thermal devices. We here design a model of asymmetric network structure to study this problem in complex networks, which is composed of two parts with different topologies. We find that the heat conduction and rectification can be significantly changed by adjusting two parameters: the network rewiring parameter δ and coupling parameter λ. Two typical network structures are considered. One is composed of a random network and a two-dimensional regular lattice with half by half. Another is composed of two random networks with opposite coupling parameter ±λ. Our numerical simulations show that for the first case, both the network flux and rectification coefficient decrease monotonically with the increase of δ and there is an optimal λ for the maximum flux. For the second case, the network flux will decrease monotonically while the rectification coefficient increases monotonically, with the increase of λ. A brief theory of phonon spectra is applied to explain the numerical results.