Nonequilibrium spin transport in integrable and non-integrable classical spin chains

Abstract

Anomalous transport in low dimensional spin chains is an intriguing topic that can offer key insights into the interplay of integrability and symmetry in many-body dynamics. Recent studies have shown that spin-spin correlations in spin chains, where integrability is either perfectly preserved or broken by symmetry-preserving interactions, fall in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. Similarly, energy transport can show ballistic or diffusive-like behaviour. Although such behaviour has been studied under equilibrium conditions, no results on nonequilibrium spin transport in classical spin chains has been reported so far. In this work, we investigate both spin and energy transport in classical spin chains (integrable and non-integrable) when coupled to two reservoirs at two different temperatures/magnetization. In both the integrable case and broken-integrability (but spin-symmetry preserving), we report anomalous scaling of spin current with system size ($\mathbb{J}^s \propto L^{-\mu}$) with an exponent, $\mu \approx 2/3$, falling under the KPZ universality class. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that energy current remains ballistic ($\mathbb{J}^e \propto L^{-\eta}$ with $\eta \approx 0$) in the purely integrable case and there is departure from ballistic behaviour ($\eta > 0$) when integrability is broken regardless of spin-symmetry. Under nonequilibrium conditions, we have thoroughly investigated spatial profiles of local magnetization and energy. We find interesting nonlinear spatial profiles which are hallmarks of anomalous transport. We also unravel subtle striking differences between the equilibrium and nonequilibrium steady state through the lens of spatial spin-spin correlations.