Role of total reflection in turnover effects beyond scattering models

Determine whether effects related to total reflection can explain the turnover effect in non-scattering realizations, such as spin-boson systems, where interactions are not explicitly spatially localized but may nevertheless have an underlying positional role.

Background

The paper explains the turnover effect in strongly coupled non-equilibrium devices using a scattering framework in which reservoir particles interact with a quantum system through localized repulsive potentials. In this setting, increasing the coupling strength produces total reflection, preventing particles from entering the interaction region and thereby suppressing heat or particle currents.

The authors explicitly leave unresolved whether the same mechanism applies to other realizations, particularly spin-boson systems. In those systems, the interaction is not presented as an explicitly spatially localized scattering potential, although the authors suggest that spatial localization may still play a hidden role. Establishing whether total-reflection-related effects account for turnover in such models would test the broader applicability of the paper’s proposed physical explanation.