Dissipation in spin chains using quantized nonequilibrium thermodynamics

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of an open chain of interacting spins using the quantized version of the GENERIC equation from classical out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics. We focus on both equilibrium and nonequilibrium scenarios for chains consisting of few tens of spins. While in the equilibrium case we demonstrate thermal equilibration to the correct many-body Gibbs density matrix, in the nonequilibrium dynamics we show that the steady-state energy transport behaves diffusively, consistently with Fourier's law of heat transfer.