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arXiv:cond-mat/9706069 · Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Delocalization transition via supersymmetry in one dimension

Leon Balents, Matthew P. A. Fisher

Published Nov 15, 1997• 125 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We use supersymmetric (SUSY) methods to study the delocalization transition at zero energy in a one-dimensional tight-binding model of spinless fermions with particle-hole symmetric disorder. Like the McCoy-Wu random transverse-field Ising model to which it is related, the fermionic problem displays two different correlation lengths for typical and mean correlations. Using the SUSY technique, mean correlators are obtained as quantum-mechanical expectation values for a U(2$|$1,1) ``superspin.'' In the scaling limit, this quantum mechanics is closely related to a $0+1$-dimensional Liouville theory, allowing an interpretation of the results in terms of simple properties of the zero-energy wave functions. Our primary results are the exact two-parameter scaling functions for the mean single-particle Green's functions. We also show how the Liouville quantum-mechanics approach can be extended to obtain the full set of multifractal scaling exponents $\ensuremath{\tau}(q)$, $y(q)$ at criticality. A thorough understanding of the unusual features of the present theory may be useful in applying SUSY to other delocalization transitions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.56.12970

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We use supersymmetric (SUSY) methods to study the delocalization transition at zero energy in a one-dimensional tight-binding model of spinless fermions with particle-hole symmetric disorder. Like the McCoy-Wu random transverse-field Ising model to which it is related, the fermionic problem displays two different correlation lengths for typical and mean correlations. Using the SUSY technique, mean correlators are obtained as quantum-mechanical expectation values for a U(2∣|∣1,1) ``superspin.'' In the scaling limit, this quantum mechanics is closely related to a 0+10+10+1-dimensional Liouville theory, allowing an interpretation of the results in terms of simple properties of the zero-energy wave functions. Our primary results are the exact two-parameter scaling functions for the mean single-particle Green's functions. We also show how the Liouville quantum-mechanics approach can be extended to obtain the full set of multifractal scaling exponents \ensuremathτ(q)\ensuremath{\tau}(q)\ensuremathτ(q), y(q)y(q)y(q) at criticality. A thorough understanding of the unusual features of the present theory may be useful in applying SUSY to other delocalization transitions.
We develop a scaling theory of interaction-induced delocalization of few-particle states in disordered quantum systems. In the absence of interactions, all single-particle states are localized in d<3d<3d<3, while in $d\ensuremath{\ge}3$ there is a critical disorder below which states are delocalized. We hypothesize that such a delocalization transition occurs for nnn-particle bound states in ddd dimensions when $d+n\ensuremath{\ge}4$. Exact calculations of disorder-averaged nnn-particle Green's functions support our hypothesis. In particular, we show that three-particle states in d=1d=1d=1 with nearest-neighbor repulsion will delocalize with ${W}_{c}\ensuremath{\approx}1.4t$ and with localization length critical exponent $\ensuremath{\nu}=1.5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.3$. The delocalization transition can be understood by means of a mapping onto a noninteracting problem with symplectic symmetry. We discuss the importance of this result for many-body delocalization, and how few-body delocalization can be probed in cold atom experiments.
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 formulate a strong-disorder renormalization-group (SDRG) approach to study the $\ensuremath{\beta}$ function of the tight-binding model in one dimension with both diagonal and off-diagonal disorder for states at the band center. We show that the SDRG method, when used to compute transport properties, yields exact results since it is identical to the transfer matrix method. The $\ensuremath{\beta}$ function is shown to be universal when only off-diagonal disorder is present even though single-parameter scaling is known to be violated. A different single-parameter scaling theory is formulated for this particular (particle-hole symmetric) case. Upon breaking particle-hole symmetry (by adding diagonal disorder), the $\ensuremath{\beta}$ function is shown to crossover from the universal behavior of the particle-hole symmetric case to the conventional nonuniversal one in agreement with the two-parameter scaling theory. We finally draw an analogy with the random transverse-field Ising chain in the paramagnetic phase. The particle-hole symmetric case corresponds to the critical point of the quantum Ising model, while the generic case corresponds to the Griffiths paramagnetic phase.
A fundamental property of the quantum Hall effect is the presence of edge states at the boundary of the sample, robust against localization and responsible for the perfect quantization of the Hall conductance. The transition between integer quantum Hall plateaus is a delocalization transition, which can be identified as a strong-coupling fixed point of a 1 + 1-dimensional supersymmetric sigma model with topological theta-term. The conformal field theory describing this transition displays unusual features such as non-unitarity, and resisted any attempt of solution so far. In this thesis we investigate the role of edge states at quantum Hall transitions using lattice discretizations of super sigma models. Edge states correspond to twisted boundary conditions for the fields, which can be discretized as quantum spin chains or geometrical (loop) models. For the spin quantum Hall effect, a counterpart of the integer quantum Hall effect for spin transport (class C), our techniques allow the exact computation of critical exponents of the boundary conformal field theories describing higher plateaus transitions. Our predictions for the mean spin conductance are validated by extensive numerical simulations of the related localization problems. Envisaging applications to transport in network models of 2 + 1-dimensional disordered electrons, and to quenches in one-dimensional gapless quantum systems, in this thesis we have also developed a new formalism for dealing with partition functions of critical systems in rectangular geometries. As an application, we derive formulas for probabilities of self-avoiding walks.
Characterizing the delocalization transition in closed quantum systems with a many-body localized phase is a key open question in the field of nonequilibrium physics. We exploit the fact that localization of particles as realized in Anderson localization and standard many-body localization (MBL) implies Fock-space localization in single-particle basis sets characterized by a real-space index. Using a recently introduced quantitative measure for Fock-space localization computed from the density distributions, the occupation distance, we systematically study its scaling behavior across delocalization transitions and identify critical points from scaling collapses of numerical data. Excellent agreement with literature results is found for the critical disorder strengths of noninteracting fermions, such as the one-dimensional Aubry-Andr\'e model and the three-dimensional Anderson model. We observe a distinctively different scaling behavior in the case of interacting fermions with random disorder consistent with a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. Finally, we use our measure to extract the transition point as a function of filling for interacting fermions.
A careful study of the supersymmetric version of Pruisken’s nonlinear σ model for the integer quantum Hall effect is presented. The lattice regularized model is cast in Hamiltonian form by taking the anisotropic limit and interpreting the topological density as an alternating sum of Wess-Zumino terms. It is argued that the relevant large-scale physics of the model is preserved by projection of the quantum Hamiltonian on its sector of degenerate strong-coupling ground states. For values of the Hall conductivity close to e 2 /2h (mod e 2 /h), where a delocalization transition occurs, this yields the Hamiltonian of a quantum superspin chain which is closely related to an anisotropic version of the Chalker-Coddington model. The relation implies that the ratio of magnetic length over potential correlation length is an irrelevant parameter at the transition. The superspin chain resembles a 1d isotropic antiferromagnet with spin 1/2. It has an alternating structure which however permits an invariance under translation by one site. The conductance coefficients of a quantum Hall system with N small contacts translate into N-superspin correlation functions which are governed by conformal invariance. The superspin formalism provides a framework for studying the crossover from classical to quantum percolation. It does not however encompass the frequency-dependent correlations of wave amplitudes at criticality.