A rigorous scattering approach to quasifree fermionic systems out of equilibrium

Abstract

Within the rigorous axiomatic framework for the description of quantum mechanical systems with a large number of degrees of freedom, we construct the so-called nonequilibrium steady state for the quasifree fermionic system corresponding to the isotropic XY chain in which a finite sample, subject to a local gauge breaking anisotropy perturbation, is coupled to two thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. Using time dependent and stationary scattering theory, we rigorously prove, from first principles, that the nonequilibrium system under consideration is thermodynamically nontrivial, i.e., that its entropy production rate is strictly positive.