Violation of the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem and Heating Effects in the Time-Dependent Kondo Model

Abstract

The fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) plays a fundamental role in understanding quantum many-body problems. However, its applicability is limited to equilibrium systems and it does in general not hold in nonequilibrium situations. This violation of the FDT is an important tool for studying nonequilibrium physics. In this paper we present results for the violation of the FDT in the Kondo model where the impurity spin is frozen for all negative times, and set free to relax at positive times. We derive exact analytical results at the Toulouse point, and results within a controlled approximation in the Kondo limit, which allow us to study the FDT violation on all time scales.A measure of the FDT violation is provided by the effective temperature, which shows initial heating effects after switching on the perturbation, and then exponential cooling to zero temperature as the Kondo system reaches equilibrium.