Time-Loop Formalism for Irreversible Quantum Problems: Steady State Transport in Junctions with Asymmetric Dynamics

Abstract

Non-unitary quantum mechanics has been used in the past to study irreversibility, dissipation and decay in a variety of physical systems. In this letter, we propose a general scheme to deal with systems governed by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. We argue that the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism gives a natural description for those problems. To elucidate the method, we study a simple model inspired by mesoscopic physics --an asymmetric junction. The system is governed by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian which captures essential aspects of irreversibility.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Observing Majorana Bound States in p-wave Superconductors Using Noise Measurements in Tunneling Experiments
• Non-Hermitian Luttinger liquids and flux line pinning in planar superconductors
• Point-contact tunneling involving low-dimensional spin-triplet superconductors
• Keldysh study of point-contact tunneling between superconductors

Cited by in corpus (8)

• The robust $\mP\mT$-symmetric chain and properties of its Hermitian counterpart
• Consistent bosonization-debosonization II: The two-lead Kondo problem and the fate of its non-equilibrium Toulouse point
• Optical response of a dual membrane active-passive optomechanical cavity
• Consistent bosonization-debosonization I: A resolution of the non-equilibrium transport puzzle
• Tunneling into quantum wires: regularization of the tunneling Hamiltonian and consistency between free and bosonized fermions
• Electric conductivity in non-Hermitian holography
• Systematic compactification of the two-channel Kondo model. I. Consistent bosonization-debosonization approach and exact comparisons
• $T\bar{T}$ deformation on non-Hermitian two coupled SYK model