Nonequilibrium transport in quantum impurity models: the Bethe ansatz for open systems

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Jun 2;96(21):216802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.216802. Epub 2006 Jun 1.

Abstract

We develop an exact nonperturbative framework to compute steady-state properties of quantum impurities subject to a finite bias. We show that the steady-state physics of these systems is captured by nonequilibrium scattering eigenstates which satisfy an appropriate Lippman-Schwinger equation. Introducing a generalization of the equilibrium Bethe ansatz--the nonequilibrium Bethe ansatz--we explicitly construct the scattering eigenstates for the interacting resonance level model and derive exact, nonperturbative results for the steady-state properties of the system.