Dual landscapes in Anderson localization on discrete lattices

Abstract

The localization subregions of stationary waves in continuous disordered media have been recently demonstrated to be governed by a hidden landscape that is the solution of a Dirichlet problem expressed with the wave operator. In this theory, the strength of Anderson localization confinement is determined by this landscape, and continuously decreases as the energy increases. However, this picture has to be changed in discrete lattices in which the eigenmodes close to the edge of the first Brillouin zone are as localized as the low energy ones. Here we show that in a 1D discrete lattice, the localization of low and high energy modes is governed by two different landscapes, the high energy landscape being the solution of a dual Dirichlet problem deduced from the low energy one using the symmetries of the Hamiltonian. We illustrate this feature using the one-dimensional tight-binding Hamiltonian with random on-site potentials as a prototype model. Moreover we show that, besides unveiling the subregions of Anderson localization, these dual landscapes also provide an accurate overall estimate of the localization length over the energy spectrum, especially in the weak-disorder regime.