Phase modulated thermal conductance of Josephson weak links -: art. no. 077003

We present a theory for quasiparticle heat transport through superconducting weak links. The thermal conductance depends on the phase difference (phi) of the superconducting leads. Branch-conversion processes, low-energy Andreev bound states near the contact, and the suppression of the local density of states near the gap edge are related to phase-sensitive transport processes. Theoretical results for the influence of junction transparency, temperature, and disorder, on the conductance, are reported. For high-transmission weak links, D-->1, the formation of an Andreev bound state leads to suppression of the density of states for the continuum excitations, and thus, to a reduction in the conductance for phisimilar or equal topi. For low-transmission (Dmuch less than1) barriers resonant scattering leads to an increase in the thermal conductance as T drops below T-c (for phase differences near phi=pi).