Quantum-classical correspondence principles for locally nonequilibrium driven systems

Many of the core concepts and (especially field-theoretic) tools of statistical mechanics have developed within the context of thermodynamic equilibrium, where state variables are all taken to be charges, meaning that their values are inherently preserved under reversal of the direction of time. A principle concern of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics is to understand the emergence and stability of currents, quantities whose values change sign under time reversal. Whereas the correspondence between classical charge-valued state variables and their underlying statistical or quantum ensembles is quite well understood, the study of currents away from equilibrium has been more fragmentary, with classical descriptions relying on the asymmetric auxiliary-field formalism of Martin, Siggia, and Rose (and often restricted to the Markovian assumption of Doi and Peliti), while quantum descriptions employ a symmetric two-field formalism introduced by Schwinger and further clarified by Keldysh. In this paper we demonstrate that for quantum ensembles in which superposition is not violated by very strong conditions of decoherence, there is a large natural generalization of the principles and tools of equilibrium, which not only admits but requires the introduction of current-valued state variables. For these systems, not only do Martin-Siggia-Rose (MSR) and Schwinger-Keldysh (SK) field methods both exist, in some cases they provide inequivalent classical and quantum descriptions of identical ensembles. With these systems for examples, we can both study the correspondence between classical and quantum descriptions of currents, and also clarify the nature of the mapping between the structurally homologous but interpretationally different MSR and SK formalisms.