A quantum heat switch based on a single driven qubit*

With the growing interest to nano and quantum technologies, a lot of attention has been paid to the challenge of controlling the heat currents at the nanoscale. Here we study the photonic heat transfer through a coherently driven qubit coupled to a hot and cold baths and show that such setup behaves as a quantum heat switch. More precisely, the heat flow from the hot bath can be activated or completely suppressed varying the parameters of the drive, its intensity or its frequency. We show the complete suppression of the heat flow is a quantum effect occuring for specific drive parameters and analyze the role of the coherences in the free qubit energy eigenbasis. Such scheme can be tested in state-of-the-art circuit QED setups, e.g. involving a transmon qubit coupled to thermal resistances.