The mobility edges (MEs) in energy which separate extended and localized states are a central concept in understanding the localization physics. In one-dimensional (1D) quasiperiodic systems, while MEs may exist for certain cases, the analytic results which allow for an exact understanding are rare. Here we uncover a class of exactly solvable 1D models with MEs in the spectra, where quasiperiodic on-site potentials are inlaid in the lattice with equally spaced sites. The analytical solutions provide the exact results not only for the MEs, but also for the localization and extended features of all states in the spectra, as derived through computing the Lyapunov exponents from Avila's global theory, and also numerically verified by calculating the fractal dimension. We further propose a novel scheme with experimental feasibility to realize our model based on an optical Raman lattice, which paves the way for experimental exploration of the predicted exact ME physics.
A one-dimensional lattice model with mosaic quasiperiodic potential is found to exhibit interesting localization properties, e.g., clear mobility edges [Y. Wang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{125}, 196604 (2020)]. We generalize this mosaic quasiperiodic model to a two-dimensional version, and numerically investigate its localization properties: the phase diagram from the fractal dimension of the wavefunction, the statistical and scaling properties of the conductance. Compared with disordered systems, our model shares many common features but also exhibits some different characteristics in th…
We introduce a one-dimensional lattice model whose hopping amplitudes are modulated for equally spaced sites. Such mosaic lattice exhibits many interesting topological and localization phenomena that do not exist in the regular off-diagonal lattices. When the mosaic modulation is commensurate with the underlying lattice, topologically nontrivial phases with zero- and nonzero-energy edge modes are observed as we tune the modulation, where the nontrivial regimes are characterized by quantized Berry phases. If the mosaic lattice becomes incommensurate, Anderson localization will be induced purely…
We investigate localization properties in a two-coupled uniform chains with quasiperiodic modulation on interchain coupling strength. We demonstrate that this ladder is equivalent to a Aubry-Andre (AA) chain when two legs are symmetric. Analytical and numerical results indicate the appearance of mobility edges for asymmetric ladder. We also propose an easily engineered quasiperiodic ladder system which is a moiré superlattice system consisting of two-coupled uniform chains. An irrational lattice constant difference results in quasiperiodic structure. Numerical simulations show that such a syst…
Within the framework of the Aubry-Andre model, one kind of self-dual quasiperiodic lattice, it is known that a sharp transition occurs from \emph{all} eigenstates being extended to \emph{all} being localized. The common perception for this type of quasiperiodic lattice is that the self-duality excludes the appearance of the mobility edge separating localized from extended states. In this work, we propose a multi-chromatic quasiperiodic lattice model retaining the self-duality identical to the Aubry-Andre model, and demonstrate numerically the occurrence of the localization-delocalization trans…
Quantum localization in 1D non-Hermitian systems, especially the search for exact single-particle mobility edges, has attracted considerable interest recently. While much progress has been made, the available methods to determine the ME of such models are still limited. In this work, we propose a new method to determine the exact mobility edge in a large class of 1D non-Hermitian quasiperiodic models with parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetry. We illustrate our method by studying a specific model. We first use our method to determine the energy-dependent mobility edge as well as the spectrum f…
We study a one-dimensional system that includes both a commensurate off-diagonal modulation of the hopping amplitude and an incommensurate, slowly varying diagonal on-site modulation. By using asymptotic heuristic arguments, we identify four closed form expressions for the mobility edges. We further study numerically the inverse participation ratio, the density of states and the Lyapunov exponent. The numerical results are in exact agreement with our theoretical predictions. Besides a metal-insulator transition driven by the strength of the slowly varying potential, another four insulator-meta…
We uncover the relationship of topology and disorder in a one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain subjected to a slowly varying quasi-periodic modulation. By numerically calculating the disorder-averaged winding number and analytically studying the localization length of the zero modes, we obtain the topological phase diagram, which implies that the topological Anderson insulator (TAI) can be induced by a slowly varying quasi-periodic modulation. Moreover, unlike the localization properties in the TAI phase caused by random disorder, mobility edges can enter into the TAI region identified b…
Topological Anderson insulator and reentrant topological transitions in a mosaic trimer lattice
Institute of Theoretical Physics, State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics Technologies and Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University（山西大学理论物理研究所、量子光学技术与器件国家重点实验室、极端光学协同创新中心）；Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所、凝聚态物理国家实验室）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）
We study a one-dimensional quasiperiodic system described by the Aubry-André model in the small wave vector limit and demonstrate the existence of almost mobility edges and critical regions in the system. It is well known that the eigenstates of the Aubry-André model are either extended or localized depending on the strength of incommensurate potential $V$ being less or bigger than a critical value $V_c$, and thus no mobility edge exists. However, it was shown in a recent work that this conclusion does not hold true when the wave vector $α$ of the incommensurate potential is small, and for the…
We propose a family of one-dimensional mosaic models inlaid with a slowly varying potential $V_n=λ\cos(παn^ν)$, where $n$ is the lattice site index and $0<ν<1$. Combinating the asymptotic heuristic argument with the theory of trace map of transfer matrix, mobility edges (MEs) and pseudo-mobility edges (PMEs) in their energy spectra are solved semi-analytically, where ME separates extended states from weakly localized ones and PME separates weakly localized states from strongly localized ones. The nature of eigenstates in extended, critical, weakly localized and strongly localized is diagnosed …
We investigate localization-delocalization transition in one-dimensional non-Hermitian quasiperiodic lattices with exponential short-range hopping, which possess parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetry. The localization transition induced by the non-Hermitian quasiperiodic potential is found to occur at the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry-breaking point. Our results also demonstrate the existence of energy dependent mobility edges, which separate the extended states from localized states and are only associated with the real part of eigen-energies. The level statistics and Loschmidt echo dynamics are al…
Mobility edges, separating localized from extended states, are known to arise in the single-particle energy spectrum of disordered systems in dimension strictly higher than two and certain quasiperiodic models in one dimension. Here we unveil a different class of mobility edges, dubbed anomalous mobility edges, that separate bands of localized states from bands of critical states in diagonal and off-diagonal quasiperiodic models. We first introduce an exactly solvable quasi-periodic diagonal model and analytically demonstrate the existence of anomalous mobility edges. Moreover, numerical multi…
We introduce a self-consistent theory of mobility edges in nearest-neighbour tight-binding chains with quasiperiodic potentials. Demarcating boundaries between localised and extended states in the space of system parameters and energy, mobility edges are generic in quasiperiodic systems which lack the energy-independent self-duality of the commonly studied Aubry-André-Harper model. The potentials in such systems are strongly and infinite-range correlated, reflecting their deterministic nature and rendering the problem distinct from that of disordered systems. Importantly, the underlying theore…
We aim to study a one-dimensional $p$-wave superconductor with quasiperiodic on-site potentials. A modified real-space-Pfaffian method is applied to calculate the topological invariants. We confirm that the Majorana zero mode is protected by the nontrivial topology the topological phase transition is accompanied by the energy gap closing and reopening. In addition, we numerically find that there are mobility edges which originate from the competition between the extended $p$-wave pairing and the localized quasi-disorder. We qualitatively analyze the influence of superconducting pairing paramet…
Engineering exact mobility edges in quasiperiodic Aharonov-Bohm chains
Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院精密测量科学与技术创新研究院）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）
Anomalous mobility edges and extended-localized transition in a quasiperiodic emitter-cavity array
School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering & Institute of Theoretical Physics, Ludong University（鲁东大学物理与光电工程学院暨理论物理研究所）；Center for Quantum Sciences, Northeast Normal University（东北师范大学量子科学中心）
We study the stability of the topological phase in one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain subject to the quasiperiodic hopping disorder. We investigate two different hopping disorder configurations, one is the Aubry-André quasiperiodic disorder without mobility edges and the other is the slowly varying quasiperiodic disorder with mobility edges. With the increment of the quasiperiodic disorder strength, the topological phase of the system transitions to a topologically trivial phase. Interestingly, we find the occurrence of the topological phase transition at the critical disorder strength…
In this paper, we study a one-dimensional tight-binding model with tunable incommensurate potentials. Through the analysis of the inverse participation rate, we uncover that the wave functions corresponding to the energies of the system exhibit different properties. There exists a critical energy under which the wave functions corresponding to all energies are extended. On the contrary, the wave functions corresponding to all energies above the critical energy are localized. However, we are surprised to find that the critical energy is a constant independent of the potentials. We use the self-…
A generalization of the Aubry-Andre model in two and three dimensions is introduced which allows for quasiperiodic hopping terms in addition to the quasiperiodic site potentials. This corresponds to an array of interstitial impurities within the periodic host crystal. The resulting model is exactly solvable and I compute the density of states and the ac-conductivity. There is no mobility edge as in completely disordered systems but the regular ac-conductivity and the strongly reduced Drude weight indicate a precursor of the Anderson transition as the Fermi energy goes from the center to the ba…
We study the localization transitions for coupled one-dimensional lattices with quasiperiodic potential. Besides the localized and extended phases there is an intermediate mixed phase which can be easily explained decoupling the system so as to deal with effective uncoupled Aubry-André chains with different transition points. We clarify, therefore, the origin of such an intermediate phase finding the conditions for getting a uniquely defined mobility edge for such coupled systems. Finally we consider many coupled chains with an energy shift which compose an extension of the Aubry-André model i…
Entanglement growth and information capacity in a quasiperiodic system with a single-particle mobility edge
Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所）；Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学李政道研究所）；Graduate School of China Academy of Engineering Physics（中国工程物理研究院研究生院）
We propose a general analytic method to study the localization transition in one-dimensional quasicrystals with parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetry, described by complex quasiperiodic mosaic lattice models. By applying Avila's global theory of quasiperiodic Schrödinger operators, we obtain exact mobility edges and prove that the mobility edge is identical to the boundary of $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry breaking, which also proves the existence of correspondence between extended (localized) states and $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry ($\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry-broken) states. Furthermore, we generalize the m…
Exact mobility rings in non-Hermitian quasiperiodically decorated Lieb lattices
College of Mathematics and Physics, Chengdu University of Technology（成都理工大学数学与物理学院）；School of Physics, Hangzhou Normal University（杭州师范大学物理学院）；School of Physics, Nankai University（南开大学物理学院）
We study topological superconductor in one-dimensional (1D) mosaic lattice whose on-site potentials are modulated for equally spaced sites. When the system is topologically nontrivial, Majorana zero modes appear at the two ends of the 1D lattice. By calculating energy spectra and topological invariant of the system, we find the interval of the mosaic modulation of the on-site potential, whether it is periodic, quasiperiodic, or randomly distributed, can influence the topological properties significantly. For even interval of the mosaic potential, the system will always exist in the topological…
Steady-state thermoelectric machines convert heat into work by driving a thermally-generated charge current against a voltage gradient. In this work, we propose a new class of steady-state heat engines operating in the quantum regime, where a quasi-periodic tight-binding model that features a mobility edge forms the working medium. In particular, we focus on a generalization of the paradigmatic Aubrey-André-Harper (AAH) model, known to display a single-particle mobility edge that separates the energy spectrum into regions of completely delocalized and localized eigenstates. Remarkably, these t…
A single-particle mobility edge (SPME) marks a critical energy separating extended from localized states in a quantum system. In one-dimensional systems with uncorrelated disorder, a SPME cannot exist, since all single-particle states localize for arbitrarily weak disorder strengths. However, if correlations are present in the disorder potential, the localization transition can occur at a finite disorder strength and SPMEs become possible. In this work, we find experimental evidence for the existence of such a SPME in a one-dimensional quasi-periodic optical lattice. Specifically, we find a re…
