Dynamical thermal conductivity of argon crystal

Kaburaki, Hideo; Li, J.*; Yip, S.*; Kimizuka, Hajime*

The thermal conductivity of a rare-gas crystal (Ar) is computed using equilibrium molecular dynamics in conjunction with the Green-Kubo linear response formalism, and the Lennard-Jones potential with an appropriately long cutoff. Besides predicting absolute values of the conductivity from low temperature up to the liquid, the approach allows heat conduction to be understood as a dynamical process through the temporal behavior of the heat current correlation function. At low temperatures the correlation function shows a characteristic two-stage decay, a short-time relaxation which we attribute to single-particle motions in a local environment, and a more extended component corresponding to collective atomic motions (phonons). As temperature increases the second correlation component diminishes much faster than the first component, indicating a transition from mainly phase-coherent phonon transport to mainly phase-incoherent interatomic energy transfer in solids.