Fluctuational-electrodynamic theory and dynamics of heat transfer in multiple dipolar systems

A general fluctuational-electrodynamic theory is developed to investigate radiative heat exchanges between objects which are assumed small compared with their thermal wavelength (dipolar approximation) in N-body systems immersed in a thermal bath. This theoretical framework is applied to study the dynamic of heating/cooling of three-body systems. We show that many-body interactions allow to tailor the temperature field distribution and to drastically change the time scale of thermal relaxation processes.