Nonequilibrium Steady States in the Weakly-Coupled XXZ Model

We study nonequilibrium steady states (NESSs) in the weakly-coupled XXZ model in contact with two heat baths at different temperatures. We show that the density matrix can be represented using only projection operators specified by the quantum numbers of the quantum group $U_q(sl_2)$ in a very good approximation. By using this property, we numerically calculate physical quantities such as temperature profile, energy current, and correlation functions, for the spin chain consisting of several hundred spins. We analytically derive the exact density matrix in the limit $q \rightarrow 0$.