No Arabic abstract
We derive the exact n-point current expectation values in the Landauer-Buttiker non-equilibrium steady state of a multi terminal system with star graph geometry and a point-like defect localised in the vertex. The current cumulants are extracted from the connected correlation functions and the cumulant generating function is established. We determine the moments, show that the associated moment problem has a unique solution and reconstruct explicitly the corresponding probability distribution. The basic building blocks of this distribution are the probabilities of particle emission and absorption from the heat reservoirs, driving the system away from equilibrium. We derive and analyse in detail these probabilities, showing that they fully describe the quantum transport problem in the system.
We study quantum transport after an inhomogeneous quantum quench in a free fermion lattice system in the presence of a localised defect. Using a new rigorous analytical approach for the calculation of large time and distance asymptotics of physical observables, we derive the exact profiles of particle density and current. Our analysis shows that the predictions of a semiclassical approach that has been extensively applied in similar problems match exactly with the correct asymptotics, except for possible finite distance corrections close to the defect. We generalise our formulas to an arbitrary non-interacting particle-conserving defect, expressing them in terms of its scattering properties.
We consider the defect production of a quantum system, initially prepared in a current-carrying non-equilibrium state, during its unitary driving through a quantum critical point. At low values of the initial current, the quantum Kibble-Zurek scaling for the production of defects is recovered. However, at large values of the initial current, i.e., very far from an initial equilibrium situation, a universal scaling of the defect production is obtained which shows an algebraic dependence with respect to the initial current value. These scaling predictions are demonstrated by the exactly solvable Ising quantum chain where the current-carrying state is selected through the imposition of a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction term.
We introduce an explicit solution for the non-equilibrium steady state (NESS) of a ring that is coupled to a thermal bath, and is driven by an external hot source with log-wide distribution of couplings. Having time scales that stretch over several decades is similar to glassy systems. Consequently there is a wide range of driving intensities where the NESS is like that of a random walker in a biased Brownian landscape. We investigate the resulting statistics of the induced current $I$. For a single ring we discuss how $sign(I)$ fluctuates as the intensity of the driving is increased, while for an ensemble of rings we highlight the fingerprints of Sinai physics on the $abs(I)$ distribution.
In this review, we study some aspects of the non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum systems. In particular, we consider the effect of varying a parameter in the Hamiltonian of a quantum system which takes it across a quantum critical point or line. We study both sudden and slow quenches in a variety of systems including one-dimensional ultracold atoms in an optical lattice, an infinite range ferromagnetic Ising model, and some exactly solvable spin models in one and two dimensions (such as the Kitaev model). We show that quenching leads to the formation of defects whose density has a power-law dependence on the quenching rate; the power depends on the dimensionalities of the system and of the critical surface and on some of the exponents associated with the critical point which is being crossed. We also study the effect of non-linear quenching; the power law of the defects then depends on the degree of non-linearity. Finally, we study some spin-1/2 models to discuss how a qubit can be transferred across a system.
We revisit the problem of an elastic line (e.g. a vortex line in a superconductor) subject to both columnar disorder and point disorder in dimension $d=1+1$. Upon applying a transverse field, a delocalization transition is expected, beyond which the line is tilted macroscopically. We investigate this transition in the fixed tilt angle ensemble and within a one-way model where backward jumps are neglected. From recent results about directed polymers and their connections to random matrix theory, we find that for a single line and a single strong defect this transition in presence of point disorder coincides with the Baik-Ben Arous-Peche (BBP) transition for the appearance of outliers in the spectrum of a perturbed random matrix in the GUE. This transition is conveniently described in the polymer picture by a variational calculation. In the delocalized phase, the ground state energy exhibits Tracy-Widom fluctuations. In the localized phase we show, using the variational calculation, that the fluctuations of the occupation length along the columnar defect are described by $f_{KPZ}$, a distribution which appears ubiquitously in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class. We then consider a smooth density of columnar defect energies. Depending on how this density vanishes at its lower edge we find either (i) a delocalized phase only (ii) a localized phase with a delocalization transition. We analyze this transition which is an infinite-rank extension of the BBP transition. The fluctuations of the ground state energy of a single elastic line in the localized phase (for fixed columnar defect energies) are described by a Fredholm determinant based on a new kernel. The case of many columns and many non-intersecting lines, relevant for the study of the Bose glass phase, is also analyzed. The ground state energy is obtained using free probability and the Burgers equation.