  In this work a practical scheme is developed for the first-principles study
of time-dependent quantum transport. The basic idea is to combine the transport
master-equation with the well-known time-dependent density functional theory.
The key ingredients of this paper include: (i) the partitioning-free initial
condition and the consideration of the time-dependent bias voltages which base
our treatment on the Runge-Gross existence theorem; (ii) the non-Markovian
master equation for the reduced (many-body) central system (i.e. the device);
and (iii) the construction of Kohn-Sham master equation for the reduced
single-particle density matrix, where a number of auxiliary functions are
introduced and their equations of motion (EOM) are established based on the
technique of spectral decomposition. As a result, starting with a well-defined
initial state, the time-dependent transport current can be calculated
simultaneously along the propagation of the Kohn-Sham master equation and the
EOM of the auxiliary functions.
