title: Scaling theory of heat transport in quasi-one-dimensional disordered harmonic chains.
abstract: We introduce a variant of the banded random matrix ensemble and show, using detailed numerical analysis and theoretical arguments, that the phonon heat current in disordered quasi-one-dimensional lattices obeys a one-parameter scaling law. The resulting β function indicates that an anomalous Fourier law is applicable in the diffusive regime, while in the localization regime the heat current decays exponentially with the sample size. Our approach opens a new way to investigate the effects of Anderson localization in heat conduction based on the powerful ideas of scaling theory.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA.
authors.forename: Joshua D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Bodyfelt
authors.forename: Mei C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Ragnar
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fleischmann
authors.forename: Tsampikos
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kottos
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004735:Energy Transfer; D015233:Models, Statistical; D013816:Thermodynamics