Transport in nanoscale systems: the microcanonical versus grand-canonical picture

We analyse a picture of transport in which two large but finite charged electrodes discharge across a nanoscale junction. We identify a functional whose minimisation, within the space of all bound many-body wavefunctions, defines an instantaneous steady state. We also discuss factors that favour the onset of steady-state conduction in such systems, make a connection with the notion of entropy, and suggest a novel source of steady-state noise. Finally, we prove that the true many-body total current in this closed system is given exactly by the one-electron total current, obtained from time-dependent density-functional theory.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Conformal invariance and rationality in an even dimensional quantum field theory

Invariance under finite conformal transformations in Minkowski space and the Wightman axioms imply strong locality (Huygens principle) and rationality of correlation functions, thus providing an extension of the concept of vertex algebra to higher dimensions. Gibbs (finite temperature) expectation values appear as elliptic functions in the conformal time. We survey and further pursue our program of constructing a globally conformal invariant model of a hermitean scalar field L of scale dimension four in Minkowski space-time which can be interpreted as the Lagrangian density of a gauge field theory.Comment: 33 pages, misprints corrected, references update

Chiral zero modes of the SU(n) Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model

We define the chiral zero modes' phase space of the G=SU(n) Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model as an (n-1)(n+2)-dimensional manifold M_q equipped with a symplectic form involving a special 2-form - the Wess-Zumino (WZ) term - which depends on the monodromy M. This classical system exhibits a Poisson-Lie symmetry that evolves upon quantization into an U_q(sl_n) symmetry for q a primitive even root of 1. For each constant solution of the classical Yang-Baxter equation we write down explicitly a corresponding WZ term and invert the symplectic form thus computing the Poisson bivector of the system. The resulting Poisson brackets appear as the classical counterpart of the exchange relations of the quantum matrix algebra studied previously. We argue that it is advantageous to equate the determinant D of the zero modes' matrix to a pseudoinvariant under permutations q-polynomial in the SU(n) weights, rather than to adopt the familiar convention D=1.Comment: 30 pages, LaTeX, uses amsfonts; v.2 - small corrections, Appendix and a reference added; v.3 - amended version for J. Phys.