Non-Equilibrium Steady States in Conformal Field Theory

Abstract

We present a construction of non-equilibrium steady states in one-dimensional quantum critical systems carrying energy and charge fluxes. This construction is based on a scattering approach within a real-time hamiltonian reservoir formulation. Using conformal field theory techniques, we prove convergence towards steady states at large time. We discuss in which circumstances these states describe the universal non-equilibrium regime at low temperatures. We compute the exact large deviation functions for both energy and charge transfers, which encode for the quantum and statistical fluctuations of these transfers at large time. They are universal, depending only on fundamental constants (\({\hbar, k_B}\)), on the central charge and on the external parameters such as the temperatures or the chemical potentials, and they satisfy fluctuation relations. A key point consists in relating the derivatives of these functions to the linear response functions but at complex shifted external parameters.