A PARTITION-FREE APPROACH TO TRANSIENT AND STEADY_STATE CHARGE CURRENTS

V. A. Zagrebnov (Centre de Physique Théorique, Université Aix-Marseille II)

We construct a non-equilibrium steady state and calculate the corresponding current for a mesoscopic Fermi system in the partition-free setting. To this end we study a small sample coupled to a finite number of semi-infinite leads. Initially, the whole system of quasi-free fermions is in a grand canonical equilibrium state. At t=0 we turn on a potential bias on the leads and let the system evolve. We study how the charge current behaves in time and how it stabilizes itself around a steady state value, which is given by a Landauer-type formula.