Thinking transport as a twist (Q833379)

The determination of the conductivity of a deterministic or stochastic classical system coupled to reservoirs at its ends can in general be mapped onto the problem of computing the stiffness (the ``energy'' cost of twisting the boundaries) of a quantum-like system. The nature of the coupling to the reservoirs determines the details of the mechanical coupling of the torque at the ends. \noindent In the present paper, the authors start with the introduction of an evolution equation of the physical system. It is found to be convenient to use the operator bra-ket notation by which the probability distribution in a point of the phase space at a special moment of time is associated to a Hilbert space quantum-like ``state''. Hamiltonian and simple symmetric exclusion processes (continuous time Markov processes) are introduced, that are repeatedly used in the paper. Further, it is shown that the bulk current in a transport model subject to a gradient in the boundary conditions can be expressed in terms of a ``helical'' operator. Then, linear response theory is used to rederive two equivalent expressions of the finite volume conductivity, the first coincides with the standard Green-Kubo formula, the second one involves the autocorrelation function of an operator which depends only on the boundaries. The second expression allows to show that the conductivity is proportional to the stiffness of the evolution operator when a twist is exerted at the boundaries.