Thermal conduction in a harmonic chain coupled to two cavity-optomechanical systems

We propose a model including a one-dimensional harmonic chain of oscillators whose two ends coupled two cavity-optomechanical systems for studying one-dimensional thermal conductivity in statistical physics. In this model, the cavity-optomechanical systems function as two laser-engineerable thermal reservoirs. When the effective temperatures of the two reservoirs are not equal, a heat flux through the chain can be generated, and moreover the classical and quantum features of the heat flux have been studied. We further show that the heat flux does not obey the Fourier's law in this model. The thermal switching phenomenon could be induced by controlling the on-site vibrational frequency. Finally, we propose to apply the correlation between two mechanical oscillators to measure the heat flux through the chain.