Ab-initio formulation of the 4-point conductance of interacting electronic systems

Abstract

We derive an expression for the 4-point conductance of a general quantum junction in terms of the density response function. Our formulation allows us to show that the 4-point conductance of an interacting electronic system possessing either a geometrical constriction and/or an opaque barrier becomes identical to the macroscopically measurable 2-point conductance. Within time-dependent density-functional theory the formulation leads to a direct identification of the functional form of the exchange-correlation kernel that is important for the conductance. We demonstrate the practical implementationof our formula for a metal-vacuum-metal interface.