Ballistic transport of interacting Bose particles in the tight-binding chain

Abstract

It is known that quantum transport of non-interacting Bose particles across the tight-binding chain is ballistic in the sense that the current does not depend on the chain length. We address the question whether the transport of strongly interacting bosons can be ballistic as well. We find such a regime and show that, classically, it corresponds to the synchronized motion of local non-linear oscillators. It is also argued that, unlike the case of non-interacting bosons, the transporting state responsible for the ballistic transport of interacting bosons is metastable, i.e., the current decays in course of time. An estimate for the decay time is obtained.