Bosonization technique for one-dimensional fermions out of equilibrium is developed in the framework of the Keldysh action formalism. We first demonstrate how this approach is implemented for free fermions and for the problem of nonequilibrium Fermi edge singularity. We then employ the technique to study an interacting quantum wire attached to two electrodes with arbitrary energy distributions. The nonequilibrium electron Green’s functions, which can be measured via tunneling spectroscopy technique and carry the information about energy distribution, zero-bias anomaly, and dephasing, are expressed in terms of functional determinants of single-particle “counting” operators. The corresponding time-dependent scattering phase is found to be intrinsically related to “fractionalization” of electron-hole excitations in the tunneling process and at boundaries with leads. Results are generalized to the case of spinful particles as well to Green’s functions at different spatial points (relevant to the problem of dephasing in Luttinger liquid interferometers). For double-step distributions, the dephasing rates are oscillatory functions of the interaction strength.

• Received 24 November 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.085436