Thermal conductivity of the chain with an asymmetric pair interaction

Abstract

We provide molecular dynamics simulation of heat transport in one-dimensional molecular chains with different interparticle pair potentials. We show that the thermal conductivity is finite in the thermodynamic limit in the chains with the potential, which allows for bond dissociation. The Lennard-Jones, Morse and Coulomb potentials belong to such type of potentials. The convergence of the thermal conductivity is provided by phonon scattering on the locally stretched loose interatomic bonds at low temperature and by the many-particle scattering at high temperature. On the other hand, the chains with the confining pair potential, which does not allow for the bond dissociation, posses anomalous (diverging with the chain length) thermal conductivity. We emphasize that the chains with the symmetric or asymmetric Fermi-Pasta-Ulam potential or with the combined potentials containing parabolic confining potential all exhibit anomalous heat transport.