Abstract We show that the crossover from the weak interaction limit towards the strong interaction limit may be accompanied by a delocalization effect in one dimensional disordered quantum models. The spin degrees of freedom are frozen and the spatial wave functions remain symmetric or antisymmetric when the strength U of a short range interaction is varied. The study concerns the excited states for two interacting particles and the ground state for a finite density of carriers. First, for two particles in a chain of length L , we establish a duality transformation mapping the behavior at weak U onto the behavior at strong U . For intermediate U , the mixing of the one body states and the interaction induced delocalization effect are maximum. Furthermore, if L ≈︂ L 1 (the one particle localization length), the system becomes weakly chaotic with critical spectral statistics. This weak chaos is related to the multifractality of the interaction matrix. For two particles starting close to each other, localization is reached in two steps. Before the time t 1 necessary to propagate over L 1 , U de‐favors the propagation. On the contrary, U favors a very slow delocalization after t 1 , characterized by a log( t ) spreading of the center of mass. Similarly, the curvatures of the energy levels with respect to an enclosed magnetic flux decrease as a function of U for L < L 1 and increase for L > L 1 . The changes of the curvatures can be described by a conductance‐like single scaling parameter. Second, using the density renormalization group algorithm, we have studied the ground state energy of a finite density of spinless fermions and its change under twisted boundary conditions. For a large disorder, a charge reorganization is induced by the interaction: When the system becomes instable between the inhomogeneous configuration driven by the random potential (Anderson insulator) and the homogeneous one driven by repulsive interactions (Mott insulator), the ground state sensitivity can be enhanced by orders of magnitude. In contrast, no enhancement occurs at weaker disorder, when there are many particles on a scale L 1 .
Abstract We show that the crossover from the weak interaction limit towards the strong interaction limit may be accompanied by a delocalization effect in one dimensional disordered quantum models. The spin degrees of freedom are frozen and the spatial wave functions remain symmetric or antisymmetric when the strength U of a short range interaction is varied. The study concerns the excited states for two interacting particles and the ground state for a finite density of carriers. First, for two particles in a chain of length L , we establish a duality transformation mapping the behavior at weak U onto the behavior at strong U . For intermediate U , the mixing of the one body states and the interaction induced delocalization effect are maximum. Furthermore, if L ≈︂ L 1 (the one particle localization length), the system becomes weakly chaotic with critical spectral statistics. This weak chaos is related to the multifractality of the interaction matrix. For two particles starting close to each other, localization is reached in two steps. Before the time t 1 necessary to propagate over L 1 , U de‐favors the propagation. On the contrary, U favors a very slow delocalization after t 1 , characterized by a log( t ) spreading of the center of mass. Similarly, the curvatures of the energy levels with respect to an enclosed magnetic flux decrease as a function of U for L < L 1 and increase for L > L 1 . The changes of the curvatures can be described by a conductance‐like single scaling parameter. Second, using the density renormalization group algorithm, we have studied the ground state energy of a finite density of spinless fermions and its change under twisted boundary conditions. For a large disorder, a charge reorganization is induced by the interaction: When the system becomes instable between the inhomogeneous configuration driven by the random potential (Anderson insulator) and the homogeneous one driven by repulsive interactions (Mott insulator), the ground state sensitivity can be enhanced by orders of magnitude. In contrast, no enhancement occurs at weaker disorder, when there are many particles on a scale L 1 .
We show that the crossover from the weak interaction limit towards the strong interaction limit may be accompanied by a delocalization effect in one dimensional disordered quantum models. The spin degrees of freedom are frozen and the spatial wave functions remain symmetric or antisymmetric when the strength U of a short range interaction is varied. The study concerns the excited states for two interacting particles and the ground state for a finite density of carriers. First, for two particles in a chain of length L, we establish a duality transformation mapping the behavior at weak U onto the behavior at strong U. For intermediate U, the mixing of the one body states and the interaction induced delocalization effect are maximum. Furthermore, if L ≈︂ L1 (the one particle localization length), the system becomes weakly chaotic with critical spectral statistics. This weak chaos is related to the multifractality of the interaction matrix. For two particles starting close to each other, localization is reached in two steps. Before the time t1 necessary to propagate over L1 , U de-favors the propagation. On the contrary, U favors a very slow delocalization after t1 , characterized by a log(t) spreading of the center of mass. Similarly, the curvatures of the energy levels with respect to an enclosed magnetic flux decrease as a function of U for L < L1 and increase for L > L1 . The changes of the curvatures can be described by a conductance-like single scaling parameter. Second, using the density renormalization group algorithm, we have studied the ground state energy of a finite density of spinless fermions and its change under twisted boundary conditions. For a large disorder, a charge reorganization is induced by the interaction: When the system becomes instable between the inhomogeneous configuration driven by the random potential (Anderson insulator) and the homogeneous one driven by repulsive interactions (Mott insulator), the ground state sensitivity can be enhanced by orders of magnitude. In contrast, no enhancement occurs at weaker disorder, when there are many particles on a scale L1.
We consider a one-dimensional (1D) quantum many-body system and investigate how the interplay between interaction and on-site disorder affects spatial localization and quantum correlations. The hopping amplitude is kept constant. To measure localization, we use the number of principal components (NPC), which quantifies the spreading of the system eigenstates over vectors of a given basis set. Quantum correlations are determined by a global entanglement measure Q , which quantifies the degree of entanglement of multipartite pure states. Our studies apply analogously to a 1D system of interacting spinless fermions, hard-core bosons, or yet to an XXZ Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain. Disorder is characterized by both uncorrelated and long-range correlated random on-site energies. Dilute and half-filled chains are analyzed. In half-filled clean chains, delocalization is maximum when the particles do not interact, whereas multi-partite entanglement is largest when they do. In the presence of uncorrelated disorder, NPC and Q show a nontrivial behavior with interaction, peaking in the chaotic region. The inclusion of correlated disorder may further extend two-particle states, but the effect decreases with the number of particles and the strength of their interactions. In half-filled chains with large interaction, correlated disorder may even enhance localization.
We study the interplay of disorder localization and strong local interactions within the Anderson-Hubbard model. Taking into account local Mott-Hubbard physics and static screening of the disorder potential, the system is mapped onto an effective single-particle Anderson model, which is studied within the self-consistent theory of electron localization. For fermions, we find rich nonmonotonic behavior of the localization length ξ, particularly in two-dimensional systems, including an interaction-induced exponential enhancement of ξ for small and intermediate disorders and a strong reduction of ξ due to hopping suppression by strong interactions. In three dimensions, we identify for half filling a Mott-Hubbard-assisted Anderson localized phase existing between the metallic and the Mott-Hubbardgapped phases. For small U there is re-entrant behavior from the Anderson localized phase to the metallic phase. For bosons, the unrestricted particle occupation number per lattice site yields a monotonic enhancement of ξ as a function of decreasing interaction, which we assume to persist until the superfluid Bose- Einstein condensate phase is entered. Besides, we study cold atomic gases expanding, by a diffusion process, in a weak random potential. We show that the density-density correlation function of the expanding gas is strongly affected by disorder and we estimate the typical size of a speckle spot, i.e., a region of enhanced or depleted density. Both a Fermi gas and a Bose-Einstein condensate (in a mean-field approach) are considered.
We study the ergodic properties of excited states in a model of interacting fermions in quasi-one-dimensional chains subjected to a random vector potential. In the noninteracting limit, we show that arbitrarily small values of this complex off-diagonal disorder trigger localization for the whole spectrum; the divergence of the localization length in the single-particle basis is characterized by a critical exponent $\ensuremath{\nu}$ which depends on the energy density being investigated. When short-range interactions are included, the localization is lost, and the system is ergodic regardless of the magnitude of disorder in finite chains. Our numerical results suggest a delocalization scheme for arbitrary small values of interactions. This finding indicates that the standard scenario of the many-body localization cannot be obtained in a model with random gauge fields.
We study the effects of generic short-ranged interactions on a system of two-dimensional (2D) Dirac fermions subject to a special kind of static disorder, often referred to as ``chiral.'' The noninteracting system is a member of the disorder class BDI [M. R. Zirnbauer, J. Math. Phys. 37, 4986 (1996)]. It emerges, for example, as a low-energy description of a time-reversal invariant tight-binding model of spinless fermions on a honeycomb lattice, subject to random hopping, and possessing particle-hole symmetry. It is known that, in the absence of interactions, this disordered system is special in that it does not localize in 2D, but possesses extended states and a finite conductivity at zero energy, as well as a strongly divergent low-energy density of states. In the context of the hopping model, the short-range interactions that we consider are particle-hole symmetric density-density interactions. Using a perturbative one-loop renormalization group analysis, we show that the same mechanism responsible for the divergence of the density of states in the noninteracting system leads to an instability, in which the interactions are driven strongly relevant by the disorder. This result should be contrasted with the limit of clean Dirac fermions in 2D, which is stable against the inclusion of weak short-ranged interactions. Our work suggests a mechanism wherein a clean system, initially insensitive to interaction effects, can be made unstable to interactions upon the inclusion of weak static disorder. We dub this mechanism a ``disorder-driven Mott transition.'' Our result for 2D fermions also contrasts sharply with known results in one dimension, where a similar delocalized phase has been shown to be robust against the inclusion of weak interaction effects.
Disorder and interactions both play crucial roles in quantum transport. Decades ago, Mott showed that electron-electron interactions can lead to insulating behavior in materials that conventional band theory predicts to be conducting. Soon thereafter, Anderson demonstrated that disorder can localize a quantum particle through the wave interference phenomenon of Anderson localization. Although interactions and disorder both separately induce insulating behavior, the interplay of these two ingredients is subtle and often leads to surprising behavior at the periphery of our current understanding. Modern experiments probe these phenomena in a variety of contexts (e.g. disordered superconductors, cold atoms, photonic waveguides, etc.); thus, theoretical and numerical advancements are urgently needed. In this thesis, we report progress on understanding two contexts in which the interplay of disorder and interactions is especially important. The first is the so-called “dirty” or random boson problem. In the past decade, a strong-disorder renormalization group (SDRG) treatment by Altman, Kafri, Polkovnikov, and Refael has raised the possibility of a new unstable fixed point governing the superfluid-insulator transition in the one-dimensional dirty boson problem. This new critical behavior may take over from the weak-disorder criticality of Giamarchi and Schulz when disorder is sufficiently strong. We analytically determine the scaling of the superfluid susceptibility at the strong-disorder fixed point and connect our analysis to recent Monte Carlo simulations by Hrahsheh and Vojta. We then shift our attention to two dimensions and use a numerical implementation of the SDRG to locate the fixed point governing the superfluid-insulator transition there. We identify several universal properties of this transition, which are fully independent of the microscopic features of the disorder. The second focus of this thesis is the interplay of localization and interactions in systems with high energy density (i.e., far from the usual low energy limit of condensed matter physics). Recent theoretical and numerical work indicates that localization can survive in this regime, provided that interactions are sufficiently weak. Stronger interactions can destroy localization, leading to a so-called many-body localization transition. This dynamical phase transition is relevant to questions of thermalization in isolated quantum systems: it separates a many-body localized phase, in which localization prevents transport and thermalization, from a conducting (“ergodic”) phase in which the usual assumptions of quantum statistical mechanics hold. Here, we present evidence that many-body localization also occurs in quasiperiodic systems that lack true disorder.