Nonequilibrium transport in quantum impurity models: The Bethe ansatz for open systems

Abstract

We develop an exact nonperturbative framework to compute steady-state properties of quantum impurities subject to a finite bias. We show that the steady-state physics of these systems is captured by nonequilibrium scattering eigenstates which satisfy an appropriate Lippman-Schwinger equation. Introducing a generalization of the equilibrium Bethe ansatz-the nonequilibrium Bethe ansatz-we explicitly construct the scattering eigenstates for the interacting resonance level model and derive exact, nonperturbative results for the steady-state properties of the system. © 2006 The American Physical Society.