Non-Equilibrium Conformal Field Theories with Impurities

TL;DR

This paper constructs non-equilibrium steady states in conformal field theories with impurities, modeling energy flow between systems at different temperatures using a real-time scattering approach.

Contribution

It introduces a novel real-time formulation for defect dynamics in conformal field theories, enabling the construction of non-equilibrium steady states with energy flow.

Findings

Successful algebraic construction of real-time scattering maps

Application to SU(2)-based conformal field theories

Characterization of non-equilibrium steady states with impurities

Abstract

We present a construction of non-equilibrium steady states within conformal field theory. These states sustain energy flows between two quantum systems, initially prepared at different temperatures, whose dynamical properties are represented by two, possibly different, conformal field theories connected through an impurity. This construction relies on a real time formulation of conformal defect dynamics based on a field scattering picture parallelizing - but yet different from - the Euclidean formulation. We present the basic characteristics of this formulation and give an algebraic construction of the real time scattering maps that we illustrate in the case of SU(2)-based conformal field theories.