Reinterpreting Memory Effects in Nonequilibrium Systems: From Temporal Dynamics to Steady-State Signatures via NEGF

Abstract

We investigate memory effects and quantum transport in two-dimensional lattice systems within the framework of non-equilibrium Green's functions and Schwinger-Keldysh non-equilibrium quantum field theory. Starting from a 2D tight-binding Hamiltonian, we employ the Dyson expansion on the Keldysh contour and the second-order Born and self-consistent Born Approximation to derive the electronic self-energies associated with elastic and inelastic scattering mechanisms.Static disorder produces a local self-energy and a rapidly decaying memory kernel, characteristic of Markovian dynamics, whereas electron-phonon coupling generates temporally nonlocal self-energies and genuine Non-Markovian behavior. We demonstrate that these distinct memory signatures are directly reflected in the spectral function, which we propose as a diagnostic probe of non-equilibrium memory effects. Further we explore 1PI and 2PI effective actions to see their memory perspectives studying their coarse-graining behavior. Building on this theoretical framework, we further apply the conventional NEGF formalism to two paradigmatic two-dimensional models-the Hofstadter and an RKKY-coupled system to explore how different microscopic Hamiltonians influence Markovian and Non-Markovian nature. Our results provide a unified connection between scattering mechanisms, memory effects, and quantum transport in low-dimensional systems.