We present a method to analyze the results of first-principles based calculations of electronic currents including inelastic electron-phonon effects. This method allows us to determine the electronic and vibrational symmeties in play, and hence to obtain the so-called propensity rules for the studied systems. We show that only a few scattering states -- namely those belonging to the most transmitting eigenchannels -- need to be considered for a complete description of the electron transport. We apply the method on first-principles calculations of four different systems and obtain the propensity rules in each case.
@article{arxiv.0711.3392,
title = {Unified description of inelastic propensity rules for electron transport through nanoscale junctions},
author = {Magnus Paulsson and Thomas Frederiksen and Hiromu Ueba and Nicolas Lorente and Mads Brandbyge},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.3392},
year = {2008}
}