Many-body Floquet theory for radiative heat transfer in time-modulated systems
Phys. Rev. B 113, 035404 – Published 2 January, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/sr25-xxbs
Abstract
We develop a general theory of radiative heat exchange between dipoles with time-modulated optical properties. This framework extends fluctuational electrodynamics beyond equilibrium by incorporating nonstationary correlations and memory effects induced by temporal modulation. Closed-form expressions for the heat currents in modulated many-body systems are obtained, together with a generalized Landauer-like formulation of the pairwise exchanges, where the transmission coefficient accounts for all inelastic frequency-conversion channels. Near-resonant modulation redistributes and amplifies thermal fluctuations across Floquet sidebands, acting as a parametric amplifier of thermal radiation and enabling active, frequency-selective control of nanoscale heat transfer.
