Inhomogeneous conformal field theory out of equilibrium (1912.04821v3)

Abstract: We study the non-equilibrium dynamics of conformal field theory (CFT) in 1+1 dimensions with a smooth position-dependent velocity $v(x)$ explicitly breaking translation invariance. Such inhomogeneous CFT is argued to effectively describe 1+1-dimensional quantum many-body systems with certain inhomogeneities varying on mesoscopic scales. Both heat and charge transport are studied, where, for concreteness, we suppose that our CFT has a conserved U$(1)$ current. Based on projective unitary representations of diffeomorphisms and smooth maps in Minkowskian CFT, we obtain a recipe for computing the exact non-equilibrium dynamics in inhomogeneous CFT when evolving from initial states defined by smooth inverse-temperature and chemical-potential profiles $\beta(x)$ and $\mu(x)$. Using this recipe, the following exact analytical results are obtained: (i) the full time evolution of densities and currents for heat and charge transport, (ii) correlation functions for components of the energy-momentum tensor and the U$(1)$ current as well as for any primary field, and (iii) the thermal and electrical conductivities. The latter are computed by direct dynamical considerations and alternatively using a Green-Kubo formula. Both give the same explicit expressions for the conductivities, which reveal how inhomogeneous dynamics opens up the possibility for diffusion as well as implies a generalization of the Wiedemann-Franz law to finite times within CFT.