Hydrodynamics of massless integrable RG flows and a non-equilibrium c-theorem

Abstract

Abstract We study Euler scale hydrodynamics of massless integrable quantum field theories interpolating between two non-trivial renormalisation group fixed points after inhomogeneous quantum quenches. Using a partitioning protocol with left and right initial thermal states and the recently developed framework of generalised hydrodynamics, we focus on current and density profiles for the energy and momentum as a function of ξ = x/t, where both x and t are sent to infinity. Studying the first few members of the A n and D n massless flows we carry out a systematic treatment of these series and generalise our results to other unitary massless models. In our analysis we find that the profiles exhibit extended plateaux and that non-trivial bounds exist for the energy and momentum densities and currents in the non-equilibrium stationary state, i.e. when ξ = 0. To quantify the magnitude of currents and densities, dynamical central charges are defined and it is shown that the dynamical central charge for the energy current satisfies a certain monotonicity property. We discuss the connection of the Landauer-Büttiker formalism of transport with our results and show that this picture can account for some of the bounds for the currents and for the monotonicity of the dynamical central charge. These properties are shown to be present not only in massless flows but also in the massive sinh-Gordon model suggesting their general validity and the correctness of the Landauer-Büttiker interpretation of transport in integrable field theories. Our results thus imply the existence of a non-equilibrium c-theorem as well, at least in integrable models. Finally we also study the interesting low energy behaviour of the A2 model that corresponds to the massless flow from the tricritical to the critical Ising field theory.