Thermostated time evolutions are on a firm ground and widely used in classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Hamilton´s equations of motion are supplemented by time-dependent pseudofriction terms that convert the microcanonical isoenergetic time evolution into a canonical isothermal time evolution, thus permitting the calculation of canonical ensemble averages by time averaging. However, similar methods for quantum MD schemes are still lacking. Given the rich dynamical behavior of ultracold trapped quantum gases depending on the value of the s-wave scattering length, it is timely to investigate how classical thermostating methods can be combined with powerful approximate quantum dynamics schemes to deal with interacting quantum systems at finite temperature. In this work, the popular method of Nose and Hoover to create canonically distributed positions and momenta in classical MD simulations is generalized to a genuine quantum system of infinite dimensionality. We show that for the quantum harmonic oscillator, the equations of motion in terms of coherent states may be modified in a Nose-Hoover manner to mimic the coupling of the system to a thermal bath and create a quantum canonical ensemble. The method is developed initially for a single particle and then generalized to the case of an arbitrary number of identical quantum particles, involving entangled distribution functions. The resulting isothermal equations of motion for bosons and fermions contain additional terms leading to Bose-attraction and Pauli-blocking, respectively. Questions of ergodicity are discussed for different coupling schemes. In the many-particle case, the superiority of the Nose-Hoover technique to a Langevin approach is demonstrated. In addition, the work contains an investigation of the Grilli-Tosatti thermostating method applied to the harmonic oscillator, and calculations for quantum wavefunctions moving with a time-invariant shape in a harmonic potential.

The work at hand presents a novel approach to transport in closed quantum systems. To this end a method is introduced which is essentially based on projection operator techniques, in particular on the time-convolutionless (TCL) technique. The projection onto local densities of quantities such as energy, magnetization, particles, etc. yields the reduced dynamics of the respective quantities in terms of a systematic perturbation expansion. Especially, the lowest order contribution of this expansion is used as a strategy for the analysis of transport in "modular" quantum systems. The term modular basically corresponds to (quasi-) one-dimensional structures consisting of identical or at least similar many-level subunits. Modular quantum systems are demonstrated to represent many physical situations and several examples are given. In the context of these quantum systems lowest order TCL is shown as an efficient tool which also allows to investigate the dependence of transport on the considered length scale. In addition an estimation for the validity range of lowest order TCL is derived. As a first application a "design" model is considered for which a complete characterization of all available transport types as well as the transitions to each other is possible. For this model the relationship to quantum chaos and the validity of the Kubo formula is further discussed. As an example for a "real" system the Anderson model is finally analyzed. The results are partially verified by the numerical solution of the full time-dependent Schroedinger equation which is obtained by exact diagonalization or approximative integrators.