Nonequilibrium thermal transport and its relation to linear response

TL;DR

This paper investigates how spin chains out of thermal equilibrium exhibit energy transport properties related to their linear response, revealing conditions for dissipationless transport and a functional relation between steady-state current and temperature difference.

Contribution

It demonstrates the connection between nonequilibrium energy current saturation and the linear-response thermal conductivity, and introduces a Stefan-Boltzmann-like law for the current in integrable models.

Findings

Finite energy current saturation linked to infinite thermal conductivity.

Steady-state current follows a functional form J_E=f(T_L)-f(T_R).

Thermodynamic Bethe ansatz confirms the functional form for the XXX ferromagnet.

Abstract

We study the real-time dynamics of spin chains driven out of thermal equilibrium by an initial temperature gradient T_L \neq T_R using density matrix renormalization group methods. We demonstrate that the nonequilibrium energy current saturates fast to a finite value if the linear-response thermal conductivity is infinite, i.e. if the Drude weight D is nonzero. Our data suggests that a nonintegrable dimerized chain might support such dissipationless transport (D>0). We show that the steady-state value J_E of the current for arbitrary T_L \neq T_R is of the functional form J_E=f(T_L)-f(T_R), i.e. it is completely determined by the linear conductance. We argue for this functional form, which is essentially a Stefan-Boltzmann law in this integrable model; for the XXX ferromagnet, f can be computed via thermodynamic Bethe ansatz in good agreement with the numerics. Inhomogeneous systems exhibiting different bulk parameters as well as Luttinger liquid boundary physics induced by single impurities are discussed briefly.