Landauer-Büttiker formula and Schrödinger conjecture (Q2376062)

The paper concerns transport in the so called electronic black box model. The model is used to describe a one-dimensional sample connected at its left and right ends to two infinitely extended reservoirs at distinct temperatures and chemical potentials. The Landauer-Büttiker formula expresses the steady state entropy flux in the coupled system (sample + reservoirs) in terms of scattering data. The resulting steady state entropy flux may vanish in the limit for the length of the sample going to infinity. The goal of the authors is to characterize the persistence of transport in this limit in terms of the spectral data of the limiting half-line Schrödinger operator of the system.