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Applied Sciences

Intertwined Electron–Electron Interactions and Disorder in the Metal–Insulator Phase Transition

Martha Villagrán, Nikolaos Mitsakos

Published Dec 23, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum materials exhibit a rich dynamic of physical parameters, which, when combined, can lead to entirely different behaviors. These parameters constantly compete with each other, with the most influential parameters determining the state of the system. For example, in the case of metal–insulator transitions, electron–electron interactions compete with the kinetic energy of the electrons and disorder. Understanding these complex dynamics is crucial for both fundamental physics and the development of novel technological applications, particularly given the role of disorder in tuning critical temperatures, a property with significant potential benefit in the fabrication of new devices where temperature requirements are still the bottleneck. In this article, properties of the Mott metal–insulator transition within disordered electron systems are explored using the disordered Hubbard model, the simplest Hamiltonian for capturing the metal–insulator transition. The model solutions are obtained using the self-consistent statistical dynamical mean-field theory (statDMFT). statDMFT incorporates local electronic correlation effects while allowing for Anderson localization due to disorder.

DOI
10.3390/app16010146

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Quantum materials exhibit a rich dynamic of physical parameters, which, when combined, can lead to entirely different behaviors. These parameters constantly compete with each other, with the most influential parameters determining the state of the system. For example, in the case of metal–insulator transitions, electron–electron interactions compete with the kinetic energy of the electrons and disorder. Understanding these complex dynamics is crucial for both fundamental physics and the development of novel technological applications, particularly given the role of disorder in tuning critical temperatures, a property with significant potential benefit in the fabrication of new devices where temperature requirements are still the bottleneck. In this article, properties of the Mott metal–insulator transition within disordered electron systems are explored using the disordered Hubbard model, the simplest Hamiltonian for capturing the metal–insulator transition. The model solutions are obtained using the self-consistent statistical dynamical mean-field theory (statDMFT). statDMFT incorporates local electronic correlation effects while allowing for Anderson localization due to disorder.
We studied several aspects of the Mott metal-insulator transition in the disordered case. The model on which we based our analysis is the disordered Hubbard model, which is the simplest model capable of capturing the Mott metal-insulator transition. We investigated this model through statistical dynamical mean-field theory (statDMFT). This theory is a natural extension of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), which has been used with relative success in the past several years with the purpose of describing the Mott transition in the clean case. As is the case for the latter theory, statDMFT incorporates the electronic correlation effects only in their local manifestations. Disorder, on the other hand, is treated in such a way as to incorporate Anderson localization effects. With this technique, we analyzed the disordered two-dimensional Mott transition, using the quantum Monte Carlo algorithm to solve the associated single-impurity problems. We found spinodal lines at which the metal and insulator ceased to be metastable. We also studied spatial fluctuations of local quantities, such as self-energy and local Green's function, and showed the appearance of metallic regions within the insulator and vice versa. We carried out an analysis of finite-size effects and showed that, in agreement with the theorems of Imry and Ma [Y. Imry and S. K. Ma, Phys. Rev. Lett. 35, 1399 (1975).], the first-order transition is smeared in the thermodynamic limit. We analyzed transport properties by means of a mapping to a random classical resistor network and calculated both the average current and its distribution across the metal-insulator transition.
The DOS, the dynamic (optical) conductivity, and the phase diagram of a strongly correlated and strongly disordered paramagnetic Anderson-Hubbard model are analyzed within the generalized dynamical mean field theory (DMFT + Σ approximation). Strong correlations are taken into account by the DMFT, and disorder is taken into account via an appropriate generalization of the self-consistent theory of localization. The DMFT effective single-impurity problem is solved by a numerical renormalization group (NRG); we consider the three-dimensional system with a semielliptic DOS. The correlated metal, Mott insulator, and correlated Anderson insulator phases are identified via the evolution of the DOS and dynamic conductivity, demonstrating both the Mott-Hubbard and Anderson metal-insulator transition and allowing the construction of the complete zero-temperature phase diagram of the Anderson-Hubbard model. Rather unusual is the possibility of a disorder-induced Mott insulator-to-metal transition.
The interplay between Mott and Anderson routes to localization in disordered interacting systems gives rise to different transitions and transport regimes. Here, we investigate the phase diagram at finite temperatures using dynamical mean-field theory combined with typical medium theory, which is an effective theory of the Mott-Anderson metal-insulator transition. We mainly focus on the properties of the coexistence region associated with the Mott phase transition. For weak disorder, the coexistence region is found to be similar to that in the clean case. However, as we increase disorder, Anderson localization effects are responsible for shrinking the coexistence region, and at sufficiently strong disorder (approximately equal to twice the bare bandwidth) it drastically narrows, the critical temperature Tc{T}_{c}Tc​ abruptly goes to zero, and we observe a phase transition in the absence of a coexistence of the metallic and insulating phases. In this regime, the effects of interaction and disorder are found to be of comparable importance for charge localization.
Abstract: The metal–insulator transition (MIT) constitutes one of the most profound and persistent problems in condensed matter physics, sitting at the intersection of electronic structure theory, many-body physics, and emergent quantum phenomena. Conventional band theory, which successfully classifies materials as metals or insulators according to the filling of their electronic bands, fails dramatically when confronted with a class of compounds transition metal oxides chief among them that ought to be metallic by band-counting arguments yet are robustly insulating in the laboratory. The resolution of this paradox required abandoning the independent-electron picture entirely and recognizing that strong Coulomb repulsion between electrons can, by itself, drive localization. This insight, formalized by Mott and later distilled into the Hubbard model, established correlation-driven insulation as a phenomenon distinct from band insulation. The present paper offers a theoretical exploration of the MIT problem, tracing its conceptual development from the Mott criterion through the Hubbard Hamiltonian, the Brinkman–Rice scenario of quasiparticle mass divergence, and the watershed development of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), which rendered the Mott transition quantitatively tractable for the first time. We argue that the competition between the electronic bandwidth and the on-site interaction encoded in the ratio U/W provides the unifying organizing principle for the field. Building toward the modern frontier, we examine how the Mott transition connects to quantum phase transitions and quantum criticality, where zero-temperature instabilities governed by quantum rather than thermal fluctuations produce non-Fermi-liquid behavior and anomalous scaling. Case studies of vanadium oxides, rare-earth nickelates, and doped cuprates illustrate the diversity and subtlety of real correlated materials. We conclude that the MIT remains a central and unresolved problem whose continued study is increasingly entangled with the development of quantum materials and quantum technologies. Keywords: Metal–Insulator Transition; Mott Insulator; Strongly Correlated Electrons; Hubbard Model; DMFT; Quantum Criticality; Quantum Materials; Condensed Matter Physics
We study the Anderson-Hubbard model to examine the interplay between the disordered potential and the Hubbard interactions. We use the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) with an exact diagonalization as an impurity solver to effectively deal with the quantum fluctuations due to the local interactions. In order to characterize the paramagnetic metal-insulator transition in disordered systems, we compute the typical local density of states, as well as the arithmetically-averaged local density of states. Our approach is found to reproduce the characteristic features of the metal-insulator transition in infinite dimensions, such as the existence of the disorder-driven metallic phase for moderate values of disorder strength and interactions, as observed in earlier studies. In two dimensions, the system turns out to exhibit more insulating behavior when we increase the cluster size in the cellular DMFT. The metallic phase, which is induced from weak Mott insulators by the introduction of a disordered potential, is not observed in two dimensions.
Strongly correlated fermions in a crystal or in an optical lattice in the presence of binary-alloy disorder are investigated. We employ the statistical dynamical mean-field theory, which incorporates both fluctuations due to disorder and local correlations due to interaction, to solve the Anderson-Hubbard model. Localization due to disorder is studied by means of the probability distribution function of the local density of states. We obtain a complete paramagnetic ground state phase diagram consisting of disordered correlated metal, Anderson-Mott insulator, and band insulator.