Typicality of nonequilibrium (quasi-)steady currents

Abstract

The understanding of the emergence of equilibrium statistical mechanics has progressed significantly thanks to developments from typicality, canonical and dynamical, and from the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. Here we focus on a nonequilibrium scenario in which two nonintegrable systems prepared in different states are locally and non-extensively coupled to each other. Using both perturbative analysis and numerical exact simulations of up to 28 spin systems, we demonstrate the typical emergence of nonequilibrium (quasi-)steady current for weak coupling between the subsystems. We also identify that these currents originate from a prethermalization mechanism, which is the weak and local breaking of the conservation of the energy for each subsystem.