Nonequilibrium boundary-driven quantum systems: Models, methods, and properties

Systems whose boundaries are in contact with heat baths at different temperatures allow for the realization of nonequilibrium steady states (NESS) characterized by distribution functions that are still time independent, yet different from the equilibrium distributions. Such states have interesting properties even in classical statistical mechanics, but recently their quantum analogs have received attention, for both fundamental and applied reasons. This review provides an account of recent progress in this field. It introduces various models to describe the rich NESS phenomenology and covers analytic and numerical methods for analyzing them.