Long-time fermionic quantum transport with controlled full-state error using an adaptive reservoir-mode window

Abstract

Real-time simulations of interacting nanostructures coupled to fermionic reservoirs can require a growing number of environmental degrees of freedom to retain long-lived correlations. We introduce tape-recorder coarse graining, which reorganizes each noninteracting lead into incoming, active, and outgoing modes. The device is propagated with the active modes, while outgoing modes are stochastically sampled and removed once their remaining integrated coupling falls below a prescribed threshold. For each outgoing-mode truncation, we derive a nonperturbative upper bound on the infidelity between the exact and truncated full device-reservoir states over any prescribed finite interval. The bound depends on the mode's remaining coupling weight and finite-interval response factors. Numerically, the active-mode count saturates in time at fixed relative threshold and grows logarithmically as the threshold is reduced. We benchmark the method on a two-site quantum point contact at zero temperature and maximal bias. For Lorentzian reservoirs, the dynamics agrees with converged HEOM calculations and the steady-state current with the Landauer-Büttiker result. For flat-band reservoirs with algebraically decaying correlations, it agrees with direct Schrödinger evolution before finite-size recurrences and reproduces the Landauer-Büttiker stationary current, while finite exponential HEOM decompositions remain unconverged. For interacting contacts, the method yields Coulomb-blockade peak splitting. In the noninteracting driven limit, it agrees with an exact Floquet Green-function calculation and reproduces coherent current suppression under periodic driving, which persists at finite Coulomb repulsion. Together, these benchmarks show that tape-recorder coarse graining enables practical long-time simulations of the full device-reservoir state in interacting fermionic transport.