Aharonov-bohm magnetization of mesoscopic rings caused by inelastic relaxation.

The magnetization of a system of many mesoscopic rings under nonequilibrium conditions is considered. The corresponding disorder-averaged current in a ring I(phi) is shown to be a sum of the "thermodynamic" and "kinetic" contributions both resulting from the electron-electron interaction. The thermodynamic part can be expressed through the diagonal matrix elements J(micro micro) of the current operator in the basis of exact many-body eigenstates and is a generalization of the equilibrium persistent current. The novel kinetic part is present only out of equilibrium and is governed by the off-diagonal matrix elements J(micro nu). It has drastically different temperature and magnetic field behavior.