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arXiv:2604.06400 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Disorder averaging in random lattice models with periodic boundary conditions: Application to models with uncorrelated and correlated disorder

Balázs Hetényi, Luís Miguel Martelo, András Lászlóffy

Published Apr 7, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Periodic boundary conditions are not always used in the study of disordered systems, but it can be advantageous to apply them to mimick thermodynamically large systems. In this case, polarization and its cumulants can not be obtained directly, but through the tools of the modern theory of polarization. This theory casts the polarization in crystalline systems as a geometric phase, rather than an operator expectation value. We develop disorder averaging techniques within the context of this theory which can calculate the variance of the polarization, its higher order moments, and the excess kurtosis (or Binder cumulant). We also derive an indicator of delocalization based on the degeneracy as a function of boundary conditions. We apply the computational techniques to two model systems. To test localization, we use a one-dimensional disordered model which is fully Anderson localized. Our calculations verify this. We also apply our techniques to the one dimensional de Moura-Lyra model, developed to study power law correlated (controlled by a parameter, $α$) disorder. While this model is a pathological one, our method is validated. We also point out the significance of pairwise degeneracies found in the parameter range, $α>2$ and near the band center (or near half filling), where the model was conjectured to exhibit a mobility edge.

DOI
10.1103/cjqf-761y

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Periodic boundary conditions are not always used in the study of disordered systems, but it can be advantageous to apply them to mimick thermodynamically large systems. In this case, polarization and its cumulants can not be obtained directly, but through the tools of the modern theory of polarization. This theory casts the polarization in crystalline systems as a geometric phase, rather than an operator expectation value. We develop disorder averaging techniques within the context of this theory which can calculate the variance of the polarization, its higher order moments, and the excess kurtosis (or Binder cumulant). We also derive an indicator of delocalization based on the degeneracy as a function of boundary conditions. We apply the computational techniques to two model systems. To test localization, we use a one-dimensional disordered model which is fully Anderson localized. Our calculations verify this. We also apply our techniques to the one dimensional de Moura-Lyra model, developed to study power law correlated (controlled by a parameter, ααα) disorder. While this model is a pathological one, our method is validated. We also point out the significance of pairwise degeneracies found in the parameter range, α>2α>2α>2 and near the band center (or near half filling), where the model was conjectured to exhibit a mobility edge.
The insulating state of matter can be probed by means of a ground state geometrical marker, which is closely related to the modern theory of polarization (based on a Berry phase). In the present work we show that this marker can be applied to determine the metal-insulator transition in disordered systems. In particular, for noninteracting systems the geometrical marker can be obtained from the configurational average of the norm-squared one-body density matrix, which can be calculated within open as well as periodic boundary conditions. This is in sharp contrast to a classification based on the static conductivity, which is only sensible within periodic boundary conditions. We exemplify the method by considering a simple lattice model, known to have a metal-insulator transition as a function of the disorder strength, and demonstrate that the transition point can be obtained accurately from the one-body density matrix. The approach has a general ab initio formulation and could in principle be applied to realistic disordered materials by standard electronic structure methods.
Disordered quantum antiferromagnets in two-dimensional compounds have been a focus of interest in the last years due to their exotic properties. However, with very few exceptions, the ground states of the corresponding Hamiltonians are notoriously difficult to simulate making their characterization and detection very elusive, both theoretically and experimentally. Here we propose a method to signal quantum disordered antiferromagnets by doing exact diagonalization in small lattices using random boundary conditions and averaging the observables of interest over the different disorder realizations. We apply our method to study the Heisenberg spin-1/2 model in an anisotropic triangular lattice. In this model, the competition between frustration and quantum fluctuations might lead to some spin-liquid phases as predicted from different methods ranging from spin-wave mean-field theory to 2D-DMRG or PEPS. Our method accurately reproduces the ordered phases expected of the model and signals quantum disordered phases by the presence of a large number of quasidegenerate ground states together with an undefined local order parameter. The method presents a weak dependence on finite-size effects.
We develop a scaling theory and a renormalization technique in the context of the modern theory of polarization. The central idea is to use the characteristic function (also known as the polarization amplitude) in place of the free energy in the scaling theory and in place of the Boltzmann probability in a position-space renormalization scheme. We derive a scaling relation between critical exponents which we test in a variety of models in one and two dimensions. We then apply the renormalization to disordered systems. In one dimension, the renormalized disorder strength tends to infinity, indicating the entire absence of extended states. Zero (infinite) disorder is a repulsive (attractive) fixed point. In two and three dimensions, at small system sizes, two additional fixed points appear, both at finite disorder: Wa{W}_{a}Wa​ (Wr)({W}_{r})(Wr​) is attractive (repulsive) such that Wa<Wr{W}_{a}<{W}_{r}Wa​<Wr​. In three dimensions, Wa{W}_{a}Wa​ tends to zero and Wr{W}_{r}Wr​ remains finite, indicating a metal-insulator transition at finite disorder. In two dimensions, we are limited by system size, but we find that both Wa{W}_{a}Wa​ and Wr{W}_{r}Wr​ decrease significantly as system size is increased.
The phase diagram of correlated disordered electron systems is calculated within dynamical mean-field theory for the Anderson-Falicov-Kimball model with nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor hoppings. The half-filled band is analyzed in terms of the chemical potential of the system using the geometric and arithmetic averages. We also introduce the on-site energies exhibiting a long-range correlated disorder, which generates a system with similar characteristics as the one created by a random independent variable distribution. A decrease in the correlated disorder reduces the extended phase.
The existence of Anderson localization, characterized by vanishing diffusion due to strong disorder, has been demonstrated in numerous ways. A systematic approach based on the Anderson quantum model of the Fermi gas in random lattices that can describe both diffusive and localized regimes has not yet been fully established. We build on a recent publication [V. Janiš, ] and present a microscopic theory of disordered electrons that covers both the metallic phase with extended Bloch waves and the localized phase, where a propagating particle forms a quantum bound state with the hole left behind at the origin. The general theory provides a framework for constructing controlled approximations to one- and two-particle Green functions that satisfy the necessary conservation laws and causality requirements across the full range of disorder strength. It is used explicitly to derive a local, mean-field-like approximation for the two-particle irreducible vertices, enabling quantitative analysis of the solution's dynamic properties in both metallic and localized phases, including critical behavior at the mobility edge. A new instability line for the dynamical electron-hole correlation function of the metallic phase is introduced.
Disordered systems arise in many physical contexts. Not all matter is uni- form, and impurities or heterogeneities can be modeled by fixed random disor- der. Numerous complex networks also possess fixed disorder, leading to appli- cations in transportation systems [1], telecommunications [2], social networks [3, 4], and epidemic modeling [5], to name a few. Due to their random nature and power law critical behavior, disordered systems are difficult to study analytically. Numerical simulation can help overcome this hurdle by allowing for the rapid computation of system states. In order to get precise statistics and extrapolate to the thermodynamic limit, large systems must be studied over many realizations. Thus, innovative al- gorithm development is essential in order reduce memory or running time requirements of simulations. This thesis presents a review of disordered systems, as well as a thorough study of two particular systems through numerical simulation, algorithm de- velopment and optimization, and careful statistical analysis of scaling proper- ties. Chapter 1 provides a thorough overview of disordered systems, the his- tory of their study in the physics community, and the development of tech- niques used to study them. Topics of quenched disorder, phase transitions, the renormalization group, criticality, and scale invariance are discussed. Several prominent models of disordered systems are also explained. Lastly, analysis techniques used in studying disordered systems are covered. In Chapter 2, minimal spanning trees on critical percolation clusters are studied, motivated in part by an analytic perturbation expansion by Jackson and Read [6] that I check against numerical calculations. This system has a direct mapping to the ground state of the strongly disordered spin glass [7]. We compute the path length fractal dimension of these trees in dimensions d = {2, 3, 4, 5} and find our results to be compatible with the analytic results suggested by Jackson and Read. In Chapter 3, the random bond Ising ferromagnet is studied, which is es- pecially useful since it serves as a prototype for more complicated disordered systems such as the random field Ising model and spin glasses. We investigate the effect that changing boundary spins has on the locations of domain walls in the interior of the random ferromagnet system. We provide an analytic proof that ground state domain walls in the two dimensional system are de- composable, and we map these domain walls to a shortest paths problem. By implementing a multiple-source shortest paths algorithm developed by Philip Klein [8], we are able to efficiently probe domain wall locations for all possible configurations of boundary spins. We consider lattices with uncorrelated dis- order, as well as disorder that is spatially correlated according to a power law. We present numerical results for the scaling exponent governing the probabil- ity that a domain wall can be induced that passes through a particular location in the system’s interior, and we compare these results to previous results on the directed polymer problem.