Large Scale Response of Gapless 1d and Quasi-1d Systems

Abstract We consider the transport properties of non-interacting, gapless one-dimensional quantum systems and of the edge modes of two-dimensional topological insulators, in the presence of time-dependent perturbations. We prove the validity of Kubo formula, in the zero temperature and infinite volume limit, for a class of perturbations that are weak and slowly varying in space and in time, in an Euler-like scaling. The proof relies on the representation of the real-time Duhamel series in imaginary time, which allows to prove its convergence uniformly in the scaling parameter and in the size of system, at low temperatures. Furthermore, it allows to exploit a suitable cancellation for the scaling limit of the model, related to the emergent anomalous chiral gauge symmetry of relativistic one-dimensional fermions. The cancellation implies that as the temperature and the scaling parameter are sent to zero, the linear response is the only contribution to the full response of the system. The explicit form of the leading contribution to the response function is determined by lattice conservation laws. In particular, the method allows to prove the quantization of the edge conductance of 2 d quantum Hall systems from quantum dynamics.