title: Unified description of inelastic propensity rules for electron transport through nanoscale junctions.
abstract: We present a method to analyze the results of first-principles based calculations of electronic currents including inelastic electron-phonon effects. This method allows us to determine the electronic and vibrational symmetries in play, and hence to obtain the so-called propensity rules for the studied systems. We show that only a few scattering states--namely those belonging to the most transmitting eigenchannels--need to be considered for a complete description of the electron transport. We apply the method on first-principles calculations of four different systems and obtain the propensity rules in each case.
authors.affiliation: Division of Physics, School of Pure and Applied Natural Science, University of Kalmar, 391 82 Kalmar, Sweden. magnus.paulsson@hik.se
authors.forename: Magnus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Paulsson
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Frederiksen
authors.forename: Hiromu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ueba
authors.forename: Nicolás
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lorente
authors.forename: Mads
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brandbyge