Fermi's golden rule in a mesoscopic metal ring

We examine the time-dependent nonequilibrium current in a mesoscopic metal ring threaded by a static magnetic flux phi that is generated by a time-dep endent electric field oscillating with frequency omega. We show that in qua dratic order in the field there are three fundamentally different contribut ions to the current. (a) A time-independent contribution which can be obtai ned from a thermodynamic derivative. (b) A term increasing linearly in time that can be understood in terms of Fermi's golden rule. The derivation of this term requires a careful treatment of the infinitesimal imaginary parts that are added to the real frequency omega when the electric field is adia batically switched on. (c) Finally, there is also a time-dependent current oscillating with frequency 2 omega. We suggest an experiment to test our re sults. (C) 1999 Academic Press.