Giant Quantum Freezing of Tunnel Junctions mediated by Environments

Abstract

We investigate the quantum heat exchange between a nanojunction and a many-body or electromagnetic environment far from equilibrium. It is shown that the two-temperature energy emission-absorption mechanism gives rise to a giant heat flow between the junction and the environment. We obtain analytical results for the heat flow in an idealized high impedance environment and perform numerical calculations for the general case of interacting electrons and discuss the giant freezing and heating effects in the junction under typical experimental conditions.