Ballistic transport of interacting Bose particles in a tight-binding chain.

Abstract

It is known that the quantum transport of noninteracting Bose particles across a tight-binding chain is ballistic in the sense that the current does not depend on the chain length. We address the question whether the transport of strongly interacting bosons can be ballistic as well. We find such a regime and show that, classically, it corresponds to the synchronized motion of local nonlinear oscillators. It is also argued that, unlike the case of noninteracting bosons, the transporting state responsible for the ballistic transport of interacting bosons is metastable, i.e., the current decays in the course of time. An estimate for the decay time is obtained.