We consider the many-body localization-delocalization transition for strongly interacting one- dimensional disordered bosons and construct the full picture of finite temperature behavior of this system. This picture shows two insulator-fluid transitions at any finite temperature when varying the interaction strength. At weak interactions an increase in the interaction strength leads to insulator->fluid transition, and for large interactions one has a reentrance to the insulator regime.
The universality of the metal-insulator transition in three-dimensional disordered system is confirmed by numerical analysis of the scaling properties of the electronic wave functions. We prove that the critical exponent $ν$ and the multifractal dimensions $d_q$ are independent on the microscopic definition of the disorder and universal along the critical line which separates the metallic and the insulating regime.
We are interested in the out of equilibrium phenomena observed in the electrical conductance of disordered insulators at low temperature, which may be signatures of the electron coulomb glass state. The present work is devoted to the occurrence of ageing, a benchmark phenomenon for the glassy state. It is the fact that the dynamical properties of a glass depend on its age, i.e. on the time elapsed since it was quench-cooled. We first critically analyse previous studies on disordered insulators and question their interpretation in terms of ageing. We then present new measurements on insulating …
Localization of wavefunctions is arguably the most familiar effect of disorder in quantum systems. It has been recently argued [[V. Khemani, R. Nandkishore, and S. L. Sondhi, Nature Physics, 11, 560 (2015)] that, contrary to naive expectation, manipulation of a localized-site in the disordered medium may produce a disturbance over a length-scale much larger than the localization-length $ξ$. Here we report on the observation of this nonlocal phenomenon in electronic transport experiment. Being a wave property, visibility of this effect hinges upon quantum-coherence, and its spatial-scale may be…
The critical behaviour of three-dimensional disordered systems is investigated by analysing the spectral fluctuations of the energy spectrum. Our results suggest that the initial symmetries (orthogonal, unitary and symplectic) are broken by the disorder at the critical point. The critical behaviour, determinedby the symmetry at the critical point, should therefore be independent of the previous invariances and be described by a ``super'' universality class. This result is strongly supported by the fact that we obtain the same critical exponent $ν\simeq 1.35$ in the three cases: orthogonal, uni…
We revisit the field effect procedure used to characterise the slow dynamics of glassy Anderson insulators. It is shown that in the slowest systems the procedure fails and the "characteristic" time values extracted are not intrinsic but determined by the experimental procedure itself. In other cases (like lightly doped indium oxide) qualitative indications about the dynamics might be obtained, however the times extracted cannot be seen as characteristic relaxation times of the system in any simple manner, and more complete experiments are necessary. Implications regarding the effect of carrier…
We propose a scheme to generate metal-insulator transition in random binary layer (RBL) model, which is constructed by randomly assigning two types of layers. Based on a tight-binding Hamiltonian, the localization length is calculated for a variety of RBLs with different cross section geometries by using the transfer-matrix method. Both analytical and numerical results show that a band of extended states could appear in the RBLs and the systems behave as metals by properly tuning the model parameters, due to the existence of a completely ordered subband, leading to a metal-insulator transition…
This paper describes the observation of non-equilibrium field effects at room temperature in four disordered insulating systems: granular Al, discontinuous Au, amorphous NbSi and amorphous InOx thin films. The use of wide enough gate voltage ranges and a cautious analysis of the data allow us to uncover memory dips, the advocated hallmark of the electron glass, in the four systems. These memory dips are found to relax slowly over days of measurements under gate voltage changes, reflecting the impossibility for the systems to reach an equilibrium state within experimentally accessible times. Ou…
In the absence of magnetic field or spin-orbit coupling the one-parameter scaling theory predicts localization of all states in two-dimensional (2D) disordered systems, for any amount of disorder. However, a 2D metallic phase has been recently reported in high mobility Si-MOS and GaAs-based materials without magnetic field. We study numerically a recently proposed 2D model which consists of a compactly coupled pure-random plane structure. This allows to obtain exactly a continuum of one-dimensional ballistic extended states which can lead to a marginal metallic phase of finite conductivity $σ_…
We prove that previous claims of observing a direct superfluid-Mott insulator transition in the disordered J-current model are in error because numerical simulations were done for too small system sizes and the authors ignored the rigorous theorem.
We investigate the instabilities of the Mott-insulating phase of the weakly disordered Bose-Hubbard model within a renormalization group analysis of the replica field theory obtained by a strong-coupling expansion around the atomic limit. We identify a new order parameter and associated correlation length scale that is capable of capturing the transition from a state with zero compressibility, the Mott insulator, to one in which the compressibility is finite, the Bose glass. The order parameter is the relative variance of the disorder-induced mass distribution. In the Mott insulator, the relat…
We calculate the corrections to the conductivity and compressibility of a disordered metal when the mean free path is smaller than the screening length. Such a condition is shown to be realized for low densities and large disorder. Analysis of the stability of the metallic state reveals a transition to the insulating state in two-dimensions.
We present experimental data and a theoretical interpretation on the conductance near the metal-insulator transition in thin ferromagnetic Gd films of thickness b approximately 2-10 nm. A large phase relaxation rate caused by scattering of quasiparticles off spin wave excitations renders the dephasing length L_phi < b in the range of sheet resistances considered, so that the effective dimension is d = 3. The observed approximate fractional temperature power law of the conductivity is ascribed to the scaling regime near the transition. The conductivity data as a function of temperature and diso…
A global phase diagram of disordered weak and strong topological insulators is established numerically. As expected, the location of the phase boundaries is renormalized by disorder, a feature recognized in the study of the so-called topological Anderson insulator. Here, we report unexpected quantization, i.e., robustness against disorder of the conductance peaks on these phase boundaries. Another highlight of the work is on the emergence of two subregions in the weak topological insulator phase under disorder. According to the size dependence of the conductance, the surface states are either …
We employ ultracold atoms with controllable disorder and interaction to study the paradigmatic problem of disordered bosons in the full disorder-interaction plane. Combining measurements of coherence, transport and excitation spectra, we get evidence of an insulating regime extending from weak to strong interaction and surrounding a superfluid-like regime, in general agreement with the theory. For strong interaction, we reveal the presence of a strongly-correlated Bose glass coexisting with a Mott insulator.
It is believed, that a disordered one-dimensional (1D) wire with coherent electronic conduction is an insulator with the mean resistance <ρ> \simeq e^{2L/ξ} and resistance dispersion Δ_ρ \simeq e^{L/ξ}, where L is the wire length and ξis the electron localisation length. Here we show that this 1D insulator undergoes at full coherence the crossover to a 1D "metal", caused by thermal smearing and resonant tunnelling. As a result, Δ_ρ is smaller than unity and tends to be L/ξ- independent, while <ρ> grows with L/ξfirst nearly linearly and then polynomially, manifesting the so-called medium locali…
We present a theory of the metal-insulator transition in a disordered two-dimensional electron gas. A quantum critical point, separating the metallic phase which is stabilized by electronic interactions, from the insulating phase where disorder prevails over the electronic interactions, has been identified. The existence of the quantum critical point leads to a divergence in the density of states of the underlying collective modes at the transition, causing the thermodynamic properties to behave critically as the transition is approached. We show that the interplay of electron-electron interac…
We present an asymptotically exact renormalization-group theory of the superfluid--insulator transition in one-dimensional disordered systems, with emphasis on an accurate description of the interplay between the Giamarchi--Schulz (instanton--anti-instanton) and weak-link (scratched-XY) criticalities. Combining the theory with extensive quantum Monte Carlo simulations allows us to shed new light on the ground-state phase diagram of the one-dimensional disordered Bose-Hubbard model at unit filling.
The phase diagram of correlated, disordered electrons is calculated within dynamical mean--field theory using the geometrically averaged (''typical'') local density of states. Correlated metal, Mott insulator and Anderson insulator phases, as well as coexistence and crossover regimes are identified. The Mott and Anderson insulators are found to be continuously connected.
The axion insulator is a higher-order topological insulator protected by inversion symmetry. We show that under quenched disorder respecting inversion symmetry {\it on average}, the topology of the axion insulator stays robust, and an intermediate metallic phase in which states are delocalized is unavoidable at the transition from an axion insulator to a trivial insulator. We derive this conclusion from general arguments, from classical percolation theory, and from the numerical study of a 3D quantum network model simulating a disordered axion insulator through a layer construction. We find th…
The role of disorder in the field of three-dimensional time reversal invariant topological insulators has become an active field of research recently. However, the computation of Z2 invariants for large, disordered systems still poses a considerable challenge. In this paper we apply and extend a recently proposed method based on the scattering matrix approach, which allows the study of large systems at reasonable computational effort with few-channel leads. By computing the Z2 invariant directly for the disordered topological Anderson insulator, we unambiguously identify the topological nature…
In this Letter, we study an Anderson-localization-induced quantized transport in disordered Chern insulators (CIs). By investigating the disordered CIs with a step potential, we find that the chiral interface states emerge along the interfaces of the step potential, and the energy range for such quantized transport can be manipulated through the potential strength. Furthermore, numerical simulations on cases with a multi-step potential demonstrate that such chiral state can be spatially shifted by varying the Fermi energy, and the energy window for quantized transport is greatly enlarged. Expe…
We use the method of bulk-boundary correspondence of topological invariants to show that disordered topological insulators have at least one delocalized state at their boundary at zero energy. Those insulators which do not have chiral (sublattice) symmetry have in addition the whole band of delocalized states at their boundary, with the zero energy state lying in the middle of the band. This result was previously conjectured based on the anticipated properties of the supersymmetric (or replicated) sigma models with WZW-type terms, as well as verified in some cases using numerical simulations a…
We study one-dimensional disordered fermions that either undergo metal-insulator transitions or topological phase transitions to become trivial Anderson insulators. We focus on using entanglement to elucidate how the spatial, momentum, and internal degrees of freedom of fermions are affected by the presence of disorder in such cases. We develop entanglement tools that reveal the existence of metallic states in the presence of disorder and further show clear signatures of the corresponding localization transition even in the presence of interactions. In systems where the internal degrees of fre…
We use the dynamical mean-field approximation to study singularities in the self-energy and a two-particle irreducible vertex induced by the metal-insulator transition of the disordered Falicov-Kimball model. We set general conditions for the existence of a critical metal-insulator transition caused by a divergence of the imaginary part of the self-energy. We calculate explicitly the critical behavior of the self-energy for the symmetric and asymmetric disorder distributions. We demonstrate that the metal-insulator transition is preceded by a pole in a two-particle irreducible vertex. We show …
We investigate a disordered two-dimensional lattice model for noninteracting electrons with long-range power-law transfer terms and apply the method of level statistics for the calculation of the critical properties. The eigenvalues used are obtained numerically by direct diagonalization. We find a metal-insulator transition for a system with orthogonal symmetry. The exponent governing the divergence of the correlation length at the transition is extracted from a finite size scaling analysis and found to be $ν=2.6\pm 0.15$. The critical eigenstates are also analyzed and the distribution of the…
In disordered two dimensional Chern insulators, a single bulk extended mode is predicted to exist per band, up to a critical disorder strength; all the other bulk modes are localized. This behavior contrasts strongly with topologically trivial two-dimensional phases, whose modes all become localized in the presence of disorder. Using a tight-binding model of a realistic photonic Chern insulator, we show that delocalized bulk eigenstates can be observed in an experimentally realistic setting. This requires the selective use of resonator losses to suppress topological edge states, and acquiring …
We elucidate the mechanism by which a Mott insulator transforms into a non-Fermi liquid metal upon increasing disorder at half filling. By correlating maps of the local density of states, the local magnetization and the local bond conductivity, we find a collapse of the Mott gap toward a V-shape pseudogapped density of states that occurs concomitantly with the decrease of magnetism around the highly disordered sites but an increase of bond conductivity. These metallic regions percolate to form an emergent non-Fermi liquid phase with a conductivity that increases with temperature. Bond conducti…
Spin transport through magnetic insulators via magnons has recently been explored for a growing variety of magnetic systems with long-range order and well-understood spin excitation spectra. Here we show dramatic effects of spin transport through an amorphous magnetic insulator, which is both magnetically and structurally disordered. We generate and detect spin flow though amorphous yttrium-iron-garnet ($a$-YIG) thin films in a non-local geometry by use of the spin Hall and inverse spin Hall effects in platinum strips separated by 10 or more microns. By comparing non-local spin transport in $a…
We investigate the magnetic field evolution of the superconducting state in a strongly disordered NbN thin film which exhibits a magnetic field tuned superconductor to insulator-like transition, employing low temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). Transport measurements of the sample reveals a characteristic magnetic field, which separates the low field state where resistance decreases with decreasing temperature, i.e. dR/dT > 0 and a high-field state where dR/dT < 0. However, STS imaging of the superconducting state reveals a smooth evolution across this field and the presence of …
The superconducting-insulator transition is simulated in disordered networks of Josephson junctions with thermally activated Arrhenius-like resistive shunt. By solving the conductance matrix of the network, the transition is reproduced in different experimental conditions by tuning thickness, charge density and disorder degree. In particular, on increasing fluctuations of the parameters entering the Josephson coupling and the Coulomb energy of the junctions, the transition occurs for decreasing values of the critical temperature Tc and increasing values of the activation temperature To. The re…
In magnetically doped thin-film topological insulators, aligning the magnetic moments generates a quantum anomalous Hall phase supporting a single chiral edge state. We show that as the system de-magnetizes, disorder from randomly oriented magnetic moments can produce a `quantum anomalous parity Hall' phase with \emph{helical} edge modes protected by a unitary reflection symmetry. We further show that introducing superconductivity, combined with selective breaking of reflection symmetry by a gate, allows for creation and manipulation of Majorana zero modes via purely electrical means and at ze…
Calculation of topological invariants for crystalline systems is well understood in reciprocal space, allowing for the topological classification of a wide spectrum of materials. In this work, we present a new technique based on the entanglement spectrum, which can be used to identify the hidden topology of systems without translational invariance. By training a neural network to distinguish between trivial and topological phases using the entanglement spectrum obtained from crystalline or weakly disordered phases, we can predict the topological phase diagram for generic disordered systems. Th…
We investigate the momentum-dependent transport of 1D quasi-condensates in quasiperiodic optical lattices. We observe a sharp crossover from a weakly dissipative regime to a strongly unstable one at a disorder-dependent critical momentum. In the limit of non-disordered lattices the observations indicate a contribution of quantum phase slips to the dissipation. We identify a set of critical disorder and interaction strengths for which such critical momentum vanishes, separating a fluid regime from an insulating one. We relate our observation to the predicted zero-temperature superfluid-Bose gla…
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 non-interacting 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 t…
We study the construction of programable integrated circuits with the help of disordered Chern insulators (CIs) in this letter. Specifically, the schemes for low dissipation logic devices and connecting wires are proposed. We use the external-gate-induced step voltage to construct spatially adjustable channels, where these channels take the place of the conventional wires. Our numerical calculation manifests that the external gates can be adopted to program the arbitrary number of wires ($n$-to-$m$ connections). We find that their electron transport is dissipationless and robust against gate v…
A higher-order topological insulator is a new concept of topological states of matter, which is characterized by the emergent boundary states whose dimensionality is lower by more than two compared with that of the bulk, and draws a considerable interest. Yet, its robustness against disorders is still unclear. Here we investigate a phase diagram of higher-order topological insulator phases in a breathing kagome model in the presence of disorders, by using a state-of-the-art machine learning technique. We find that the corner states survive against the finite strength of disorder potential as l…
In two dimensions chaotic level-statistics is expected for massless Dirac fermions in the presence of disorder. For weakly disordered graphene flakes with zigzag edges the obtained level-spacing distribution in the Dirac region is neither chaotic (Wigner) nor localized (Poisson) but similar to that at the critical point of the Anderson metal-insulator transition. The quantum transport in finite graphene can occur via critical edge states as in topological insulators, for strong disorder the Dirac region vanishes and graphene behaves as ordinary Anderson insulator.
I argue that the incoherent, zero-frequency limit of the universal crossover function in the temperature-dependent conductivity at the superconductor-insulator transition in disordered systems may be understood as an analytic function of dimensionality of system d, with a simple pole at d=1. Combining the exact result for the crossover function in d=1 with the recursion relations in d=1+ε, the leading term in the Laurent series in the small parameter εfor this quantity is computed for the systems of disordered bosons with short-range and Coulomb interactions. The universal, low-temperature, dc…
Using a strong disorder real-space renormalization group (RG), we study the phase diagram of a fully disordered chain of interacting bosons. Since this approach does not suffer from run-away flows, it allows a direct study of the insulating phases, which are not accessible in a weak disorder perturbative treatment. We find that the universal properties of the insulating phase are determined by the details and symmetries of the onsite chemical-potential disorder. Three insulating phases are possible: (i) an incompressible Mott glass with a finite superfluid susceptibility, (ii) a random-singlet…
The topological Anderson and Mott insulators are two phases that have so far been separately and widely explored beyond topological band insulators. Here we combine the two seemingly different topological phases into a system of spin-1/2 interacting fermionic atoms in a disordered optical lattice. We find that the topological Anderson and Mott insulators in the noninteracting and clean limits can be adiabatically connected without gap closing in the phase diagram of our model. Lying between the two phases, we uncover a disordered correlated topological insulator, which is induced from a trivia…
We calculate self-consistently the mutual dependence of electron correlations and electron-defect scattering for a two dimensional electron gas at finite temperature. We employ an STLS approach to calculate the electron correlations while the electron scattering rate off Coulombic impurities and surface roughness is calculated using self-consistent current-relaxation theory. The methods are combined and self-consistently solved. We discuss a metal-insulator transition for a range of disorder levels and electron densities. Our results are in good agreement with recent experimental observations.
Even though no local order parameter in the sense of the Landau theory exists for topological quantum phase transitions in Chern insulators, the highly non-local Berry curvature exhibits critical behavior near a quantum critical point. We investigate the critical properties of its real space analog, the local Chern marker, in weakly disordered Chern insulators. Due to disorder, inhomogeneities appear in the spatial distribution of the local Chern marker. Their size exhibits power-law scaling with the critical exponent matching the one extracted from the Berry curvature of a clean system. We dr…
In this communication, we numerically studied disordered quantum transport in a quantum anomalous Hall insulator-superconductor junction based on the effective edge model approach. In particular, we focus on the parameter regime with the free mean path due to elastic scattering much smaller than the sample size and discuss disordered transport behaviors in the presence of different numbers of chiral edge modes, as well as non-chiral metallic modes. Our numerical results demonstrate that the presence of multiple chiral edge modes or non-chiral metallic modes will lead to a strong Andreev conver…
We derive an effective quantum Josephson array model for a weakly interacting one-dimensional condensate that is fragmented into weakly coupled puddles by a disorder potential. The distribution of coupling constants, obtained from first principles, indicate that weakly interacting bosons in a disorder potential undergo a superfluid insulator transition controlled by a strong randomness fixed point [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 150402 (2004)]. We compute renormalization group flows for concrete realizations of the disorder potential to facilitate finite size scaling of experimental results and allow co…
Abstract: Using ab initio calculations supported by experimental transport measurements, we present the first credible candidate for the realization of a disorder-induced Topological Anderson Insulator in a real material system. High energy reactive ball-milling produces a polymorph of Cu2ZnSnS4 with high cation disorder, which shows an inverted ordering of bands at the Brillouin zone center, in contrast to its ordered phase. Adiabatic continuity arguments establish that this disordered Cu2ZnSnS4 can be connected to the closely related Cu2ZnSnSe4, previously predicted to be a 3D topological in…
As a superconducting thin film becomes disordered and subject to an increasing magnetic field, a point is reached when it undergoes a transition from a superconducting to an insulating state. We use the Bogoliubov-De-Gennes equations and a novel Monte-Carlo approach to study this transition numerically, starting from a microscopic hamiltonian. The key effect of disorder is to create 'islands' of strong superconductivity, coupled by regions that are only weakly superconducting. In the case of weak disorder, an increasing magnetic field eventually destroys the superconducting state throughout th…
We study the superfluid-insulator transition in a one dimensional system of interacting bosons, modeled as a disordered Josephson array, using a strong randomness real space renormalization group technique. Unlike perturbative methods, this approach does not suffer from run-away flows and allows us to study the complete phase diagram. We show that the superfluid insulator transition is always Kosterlitz- Thouless like in the way that length and time scales diverge at the critical point. Interestingly however, we find that the transition at strong disorder occurs at a non universal value of the…
In the most popular approach to the numerical study of the Anderson metal-insulator transition the transfer matrix method is combined with finite-size scaling ideas. This approach requires large computer resources to overcome the statistical fluctuations and to accumulate data for a sufficient range of different values of disorder or energy. In this paper we present an alternative approach in which the basic transfer matrix is extended to calculate the derivative with respect to disorder. By so doing we are able to concentrate on a single value of energy or disorder and, potentially, to calcul…
This review deals with strongly disordered topological insulators and covers some recent applications of a well established analytic theory based on the methods of Non-Commutative Geometry (NCG) and developed for the Integer Quantum Hall-Effect. Our main goal is to exemplify how this theory can be used to define topological invariants in the presence of strong disorder, other than the Chern number, and to discuss the physical properties protected by these invariants. Working with two explicit 2-dimensional models, one for a Chern insulator and one for a Quantum spin-Hall insulator, we first gi…
We study disordered topological insulators with time reversal symmetry. Relying on the noncommutative index theorem which relates the Chern number to the projection onto the Fermi sea and the magnetic flux operator, we give a precise definition of the $Z_2$ index which is a noncommutative analogue of the Atiyah-Singer $Z_2$ index. We prove that the noncommutative $Z_2$ index is robust against any time-reversal symmetric perturbation including disorder potentials as long as the spectral gap at the Fermi level does not close.
In this work, we study the disorder effects on the bulk-boundary correspondence of two-dimensional higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs). We concentrate on two cases: (i) bulk-corner correspondence, (ii) edge-corner correspondence. For the bulk-corner correspondence case, we demonstrate the existence of the mobility gaps and clarify the related topological invariant that characterizes the mobility gap. Furthermore, we find that, while the system preserves the bulk-corner correspondence in the presence of disorder, the corner states are protected by the mobility gap instead of the bulk ga…
We develop a topological theory for disordered Weyl semimetals in the framework of gauge invariance of replica formalism and boundary-bulk correspondence of Chern insulators. An anisotropic topological $θ$-term is analytically derived for the effective non-linear sigma model. It is this nontrivial topological term that ensures the bulk transverse transport of Weyl semimetals to be robust against disorders. Moreover, we establish a general diagram that reveals the intrinsic relations among topological terms in the non-linear sigma models and gauge response theories respectively for $(2n + 2)$-d…
We investigate the superfluid-insulator transition in the disordered two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model through quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The Bose-Hubbard model is studied in the presence of site disorder and the quantum critical point between the Bose-glass and superfluid is determined in both the grand canonical ($μ/U=0.375$ close to $ρ=1$) and canonical ensemble ($ρ=1$ and 0.5). Particular attention is paid to disorder averaging and it is shown that an extremely large number of disorder realizations are needed in order to obtain reliable results. Typically we average over more than $…
We consider non-interacting bosonic excitations in disordered systems, emphasising generic features of quadratic Hamiltonians in the absence of Goldstone modes. We discuss relationships between such Hamiltonians and the symmetry classes established for fermionic systems. We examine the density ρ(ω) of excitation frequencies ω, showing how the universal behavior ρ(ω) ~ ω^4 for small ωcan be obtained both from general arguments and by detailed calculations for one-dimensional models.
We report the evolution of superconducting properties with disorder, in 3-dimensional homogeneously disordered epitaxial NbN thin films. The effective disorder in NbN is controlled from moderately clean limit down to Anderson metal-insulator transition by changing the deposition conditions. We propose a phase diagram for NbN in temperature-disorder plane. With increasing disorder we observe that as kFl-->1 the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) and minimum conductivity (sigma_0) go to zero. The phase diagram shows that in homogeneously disordered 3-D NbN films, the metal-insulator tra…
