Single-particle Eigenstates Research Articles

Localization of interacting Fermi gases in quasiperiodic potentials

We investigate the zero-temperature metal-insulator transition in a one-dimensional two-component Fermi gas in the presence of a quasi-periodic potential resulting from the superposition of two optical lattices of equal intensity but incommensurate periods. A mobility edge separating (low energy) Anderson localized and (high energy) extended single-particle states appears in this continuous-space model beyond a critical intensity of the quasi-periodic potential. In order to discern the metallic phase from the insulating phase in the interacting many-fermion system, we employ unbiased quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations combined with the many-particle localization length familiar from the modern theory of the insulating state. In the noninteracting limit, the critical optical-lattice intensity for the metal-insulator transition predicted by the QMC simulations coincides with the Anderson localization transition of the single-particle eigenstates. We show that weak repulsive interactions induce a shift of this critical point towards larger intensities, meaning that repulsion favors metallic behavior. This shift appears to be linear in the interaction parameter, suggesting that even infinitesimal interactions can affect the position of the critical point.

Encoding the structure of many-body localization with matrix product operators

Anderson insulators are non-interacting disordered systems which have localized single particle eigenstates. The interacting analogue of Anderson insulators are the Many-Body Localized (MBL) phases. The natural language for representing the spectrum of the Anderson insulator is that of product states over the single-particle modes. We show that product states over Matrix Product Operators of small bond dimension is the corresponding natural language for describing the MBL phases. In this language all of the many-body eigenstates are encode by Matrix Product States (i.e. DMRG wave function) consisting of only two sets of low bond-dimension matrices per site: the $G_i$ matrix corresponding to the local ground state on site $i$ and the $E_i$ matrix corresponding to the local excited state. All $2^n$ eigenstates can be generated from all possible combinations of these matrices.

Conduction in quasiperiodic and quasirandom lattices: Fibonacci, Riemann, and Anderson models

We study the ground state conduction properties of noninteracting electrons in aperiodic but non-random one-dimensional models with chiral symmetry, and make comparisons against Anderson models with non-deterministic disorder. The first model we consider is the Fibonacci lattice, which is a paradigmatic model of quasicrystals; the second is the Riemann lattice, which we define inspired by Dyson's proposal on the possible connection between the Riemann hypothesis and a suitably defined quasicrystal. Our analysis is based on Kohn's many-particle localization tensor defined within the modern theory of the insulating state. In the Fibonacci quasicrystal, where all single-particle eigenstates are critical (i.e., intermediate between ergodic and localized), the noninteracting electron gas is found to be a conductor at most electron densities, including the half-filled case; however, at various specific fillings $\rho$, including the values $\rho = 1/g^n$, where $g$ is the golden ratio and $n$ is any integer, the gas turns into an insulator due to spectral gaps. Metallic behaviour is found at half-filling in the Riemann lattice as well; however, in contrast to the Fibonacci quasicrystal, the Riemann lattice is generically an insulator due to single-particle eigenstate localization, likely at all other fillings. Its behaviour turns out to be alike that of the off-diagonal Anderson model, albeit with different system-size scaling of the band-centre anomalies. The advantages of analysing the Kohn's localization tensor instead of other measures of localization familiar from the theory of Anderson insulators (such as the participation ratio or the Lyapunov exponent) are highlighted.

Moment of inertia of even–even proton-rich nuclei using a particle-number conserving approach in the isovector neutron–proton pairing case

An expression of the particle-number projected nuclear moment of inertia (MOI) has been established in the neutron–proton (np) isovector pairing case within the cranking model. It generalizes the one obtained in the like-particles pairing case. The formalism has been, as a first step, applied to the picket-fence model. As a second step, it has been applied to deformed even–even nuclei such as [Formula: see text] and of which the experimentally deduced values of the pairing gap parameters [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], are known. The single-particle energies and eigenstates used are those of a deformed Woods–Saxon mean-field. It was shown, in both models, that the np pairing effect and the projection one are non-negligible. In realistic cases, it also appears that the np pairing effect strongly depends on [Formula: see text], whereas the projection effect is practically independent from the same quantity.

Computation of local exchange coefficients in strongly interacting one-dimensional few-body systems: local density approximation and exact results

One-dimensional multi-component Fermi or Bose systems with strong zero-range interactions can be described in terms of local exchange coefficients and mapping the problem into a spin model is thus possible. For arbitrary external confining potentials the local exchanges are given by highly non-trivial geometric factors that depend solely on the geometry of the confinement through the single-particle eigenstates of the external potential. To obtain accurate effective Hamiltonians to describe such systems one needs to be able to compute these geometric factors with high precision which is difficult due to the computational complexity of the high-dimensional integrals involved. An approach using the local density approximation would therefore be a most welcome approximation due to its simplicity. Here we assess the accuracy of the local density approximation by going beyond the simple harmonic oscillator that has been the focus of previous studies and consider some double-wells of current experimental interest. We find that the local density approximation works quite well as long as the potentials resemble harmonic wells but break down for larger barriers. In order to explore the consequences of applying the local density approximation in a concrete setup we consider quantum state transfer in the effective spin models that one obtains. Here we find that even minute deviations in the local exchange coefficients between the exact and the local density approximation can induce large deviations in the fidelity of state transfer for four, five, and six particles.

Localization of Interacting Fermions in the Aubry-André Model.

We consider interacting electrons in a one-dimensional lattice with an incommensurate Aubry-André potential in the regime when the single-particle eigenstates are localized. We rigorously establish the persistence of ground state localization in the presence of weak many-body interaction, for almost all the chemical potentials. The proof uses a quantum many-body extension of methods adopted for the stability of tori of nearly integrable Hamiltonian systems and relies on number-theoretic properties of the potential incommensurate frequency.

Interaction-induced connectivity of disordered two-particle states

We study the interaction-induced connectivity in the Fock space of two particles in a disordered one-dimensional potential. Recent computational studies showed that the largest localization length $\xi_2$ of two interacting particles in a weakly random tight binding chain is increasing unexpectedly slow relative to the single particle localization length $\xi_1$, questioning previous scaling estimates. We show this to be a consequence of the approximate restoring of momentum conservation of weakly localized single particle eigenstates, and disorder-induced phase shifts for partially overlapping states. The leading resonant links appear among states which share the same energy and momentum. We substantiate our analytical approach by computational studies for up to $\xi_1 = 1000$. A potential nontrivial scaling regime sets in for $ \xi_1 \approx 400$, way beyond all previous numerical attacks.

Low-energy behavior of strongly interacting bosons on a flat-band lattice above the critical filling factor

Bosons interacting repulsively on a lattice with a flat lowest band energy dispersion may, at sufficiently small filling factors, enter into a Wigner-crystal-like phase. This phase is a consequence of the dispersionless nature of the system, which in turn implies the occurrence of single-particle localized eigenstates. We investigate one of these systems---the sawtooth lattice---filled with strongly repulsive bosons at filling factors infinitesimally above the critical point where the crystal phase is no longer the ground state. We find, in the hard-core limit, that the crystal retains its structure in all but one of its cells, where it is broken. The broken cell corresponds to an exotic kind of repulsively bound state, which becomes delocalized. We investigate the excitation spectrum of the system analytically and find that the bound state behaves as a single particle hopping on an effective lattice with reduced periodicity, and is therefore gapless. Thus, the addition of a single particle to a flat-band system at critical filling is found to be enough to make kinetic behavior manifest.

Coulomb interaction effects on the Majorana states in quantum wires

The stability of the Majorana modes in the presence of a repulsive interaction is studied in the standard semiconductor wire–metallic superconductor configuration. The effects of short-range Coulomb interaction, which is incorporated using a purely repulsive δ-function to model the strong screening effect due to the presence of the superconductor, are determined within a Hartree–Fock approximation of the effective Bogoliubov–De Gennes Hamiltonian that describes the low-energy physics of the wire. Through a numerical diagonalization procedure we obtain interaction corrections to the single particle eigenstates and calculate the extended topological phase diagram in terms of the chemical potential and the Zeeman energy. We find that, for a fixed Zeeman energy, the interaction shifts the phase boundaries to a higher chemical potential, whereas for a fixed chemical potential this shift can occur either at lower or higher Zeeman energies. These effects can be interpreted as a renormalization of the g-factor due to the interaction. The minimum Zeeman energy needed to realize Majorana fermions decreases with the increasing strength of the Coulomb repulsion. Furthermore, we find that in wires with multi-band occupancy this effect can be enhanced by increasing the chemical potential, i.e. by occupying higher energy bands.

NUMBER-PROJECTED ELECTRIC QUADRUPOLE MOMENTS OF EVEN–EVEN PROTON-RICH NUCLEI IN THE ISOVECTOR PAIRING CASE

An expression of the number-projected electric quadrupole moment Q2 has been established in the isovector pairing case using the SBCS discrete projection before variation method. It has been verified that this expression reduces to the pairing between like-particles one at the limit when the np pairing gap parameter Δ np goes to zero. The convergence of the projection method has been numerically tested and a fast convergence has been observed. The electric quadrupole moment has been numerically calculated for some even–even proton-rich nuclei such as 16 ≤ Z ≤ 56 and 0 ≤ (N-Z) ≤ 4. The single-particle energies and eigen-states used are those of a Woods–Saxon mean-field. The np pairing effect on Q2 has been studied either before and after the projection; it seems that it is somewhat small since the relative discrepancies do not exceed 12%. Moreover, the np pairing effect is roughly the same in both situations. However, it has been shown that this effect diminishes with increasing values of (N-Z). The projection effect on Q2 has also been studied when including, or not, the np pairing correlations. It appears that this effect is slightly less important in the np pairing case than when only the pairing between like-particles is considered.

Systematic study of the isovector pairing effect on the moment of inertia of proton-rich nuclei in the region 30 ≤ Z ≤ 40

A systematic study of the isovector neutron-proton (np) pairing effect on the moment of inertia is performed at zero temperature. This study is based on a recently established expression obtained using the framework of the quantum perturbation theory and the Inglis cranking method, at the limit when the temperature is nil.We considered even–even proton-rich nuclei such as 30 ≤ Z ≤ 40 and N – Z = 0, 2, 4 using the single-particle energies and eigen-states of a deformed Woods-Saxon mean-field. The obtained results are compared to their homologues of the conventional BCS theory (i. e. when only the pairing between like-particles is considered).

Momentum-resolved radio-frequency spectroscopy of ultracold atomic Fermi gases in a spin-orbit-coupled lattice

We investigate theoretically momentum-resolved radio-frequency (rf) spectroscopy of a noninteracting atomic Fermi gas in a spin-orbit coupled lattice. This lattice configuration has been recently created at MIT [Cheuk et al., arXiv:1205.3483] for 6Li atoms, by coupling the two hyperfine spin-states with a pair of Raman laser beams and additional rf coupling. Here, we show that momentum-resolved rf spectroscopy can measure single-particle energies and eigenstates and therefore resolve the band structure of the spin-orbit coupled lattice. In our calculations, we take into account the effects of temperatures and harmonic traps. Our predictions are to be confronted with future experiments on spin-orbit coupled Fermi gases of 40K atoms in a lattice potential.

Light scattering from ultracold gases in disordered optical lattices

We consider a gas of bosons in a bichromatic optical lattice at finite temperatures. As the amplitude of the secondary lattice grows, the single-particle eigenstates become localized. We calculate the canonical partition function using exact methods for the noninteracting and strongly interacting limits and analyze the statistical properties of the superfluid phase, localized phase, and the strongly interacting gas. We show that those phases may be distinguished in experiment using off-resonant light scattering.

Properties of Hubbard models with degenerate localised single-particle eigenstates

We consider the repulsive Hubbard model on a class of lattices or graphs for which there is a large degeneracy of the single-particle ground states and where the projector onto the space of single-particle ground states is highly reducible. This means that one can find a basis in the space of the single-particle ground states such that the support of each single-particle ground state belongs to some small cluster and these clusters do not overlap. We show how such lattices can be constructed in arbitrary dimensions. We construct all multi-particle ground states of these models for electron numbers not larger than the number of localised single-particle eigenstates. We derive some of the ground state properties, esp. the residual entropy, i.e. the finite entropy density at zero temperature.

Quantum level engineering for Aharonov-Bohm caging in the presence of electron-electron interactions

Aharonov-Bohm (AB) cages are finite regions of a quantum network where single-particle eigenstates remain extremely localized for certain values of an applied magnetic field. Electron-electron interactions partially destroy the single-particle localization by the generation of extended many-particle states. We address the effects of on-site potentials on the AB localization phenomenon in a diamond-shaped quasi-one-dimensional bipartite chain, and show that field-induced AB cages can effectively persist in the presence of electron-electron interactions.

ISOVECTOR PAIRING EFFECT ON NUCLEAR MOMENT OF INERTIA AT FINITE TEMPERATURE IN N = Z EVEN–EVEN SYSTEMS

Expressions of temperature-dependent perpendicular (ℑ⊥) and parallel (ℑ‖) moments of inertia, including isovector pairing effects, have been established using the cranking method. They are derived from recently proposed temperature-dependent gap equations. The obtained expressions generalize the conventional finite-temperature BCS (FTBCS) ones. Numerical calculations have been carried out within the framework of the schematic Richardson model as well as for nuclei such as N = Z, using the single-particle energies and eigenstates of a deformed Woods–Saxon mean-field. ℑ⊥ and ℑ‖ have been studied as a function of the temperature. It has been shown that the isovector pairing effect on both the perpendicular and parallel moments of inertia is non-negligible at finite temperature. These correlations must thus be taking into account in studies of warm rotating nuclei in the N ≃ Z region.

Linear density response function in the projector augmented wave method: Applications to solids, surfaces, and interfaces

We present an implementation of the linear density response function within the projector-augmented wave (PAW) method with applications to the linear optical and dielectric properties of both solids, surfaces, and interfaces. The response function is represented in plane waves while the single-particle eigenstates can be expanded on a real space grid or in atomic orbital basis for increased efficiency. The exchange-correlation kernel is treated at the level of the adiabatic local density approximation (ALDA) and crystal local field effects are included. The calculated static and dynamical dielectric functions of Si, C, SiC, AlP and GaAs compare well with previous calculations. While optical properties of semiconductors, in particular excitonic effects, are generally not well described by ALDA, we obtain excellent agreement with experiments for the surface loss function of the Mg(0001) surface with plasmon energies deviating by less than 0.2 eV. Finally, we apply the method to study the influence of substrates on the plasmon excitations in graphene. On SiC(0001), the long wavelength $\pi$ plasmons are significantly damped although their energies remain almost unaltered. On Al(111) the $\pi$ plasmon is completely quenched due to the coupling to the metal surface plasmon.

NUMBER-PROJECTED BETA TRANSITION PROBABILITIES WITHIN A NEUTRON–PROTON PAIRING FRAMEWORK

Particle-number fluctuations effects on the beta transition probabilities are studied in the neutron–proton pairing framework. The Hamiltonian of the system has been considered in its most general form and has been diagonalized by means of the linearization method. However, since the generalized Bogoliubov–Valatin transformation obtained in this way leads to a quasi-particle Hamiltonian which is still nondiagonal, a rediagonalization has been performed. The corresponding wave functions have been projected on both the good neutron and proton numbers using a recently proposed method. Expressions of the beta transition probabilities which strictly conserve the particle-number have then been established. As a first step, the model has been numerically tested within the framework of the schematic one-level model. As a second step, nuclei such as N = Z has been studied using the single-particle energies and eigenstates of the Woods–Saxon deformed mean field. It has thus been shown the necessity of: (i) including the isovector pairing correlations, (ii) performing a rediagonalization of the Hamiltonian, (iii) performing a particle-number projection, (iv) carefully choice the pairing-strength values, when calculating the transition probabilities.

Fractal superconductivity near localization threshold

We develop a semi-quantitative theory of electron pairing and resulting superconductivity in bulk “poor conductors” in which Fermi energy E F is located in the region of localized states not so far from the Anderson mobility edge E c . We assume attractive interaction between electrons near the Fermi surface. We review the existing theories and experimental data and argue that a large class of disordered films is described by this model. Our theoretical analysis is based on analytical treatment of pairing correlations, described in the basis of the exact single-particle eigenstates of the 3D Anderson model, which we combine with numerical data on eigenfunction correlations. Fractal nature of critical wavefunction's correlations is shown to be crucial for the physics of these systems. We identify three distinct phases: ‘critical’ superconductive state formed at E F = E c , superconducting state with a strong pseudo-gap, realized due to pairing of weakly localized electrons and insulating state realized at E F still deeper inside a localized band. The ‘critical’ superconducting phase is characterized by the enhancement of the transition temperature with respect to BCS result, by the inhomogeneous spatial distribution of superconductive order parameter and local density of states. The major new feature of the pseudo-gapped state is the presence of two independent energy scales: superconducting gap Δ, that is due to many-body correlations and a new “pseudo-gap” energy scale Δ P which characterizes typical binding energy of localized electron pairs and leads to the insulating behavior of the resistivity as a function of temperature above superconductive T c . Two gap nature of the pseudo-gapped superconductor is shown to lead to specific features seen in scanning tunneling spectroscopy and point-contact Andreev spectroscopy. We predict that pseudo-gapped superconducting state demonstrates anomalous behavior of the optical spectral weight. The insulating state is realized due to the presence of local pairing gap but without superconducting correlations; it is characterized by a hard insulating gap in the density of single electrons and by purely activated low-temperature resistivity ln R( T) ∼ 1/ T. Based on these results we propose a new “pseudo-spin” scenario of superconductor–insulator transition and argue that it is realized in a particular class of disordered superconducting films. We conclude by the discussion of the experimental predictions of the theory and the theoretical issues that remain unsolved.

Magnetoquantum transport in a modulated 2D electron gas with spin–orbit interaction

We investigate the effects of spin–orbit interaction (SOI) and plane-perpendicular magnetic field on the conductivity of a two-dimensional electron system in the presence of one-dimensional electrostatic modulation. The calculations are performed when a low-intensity, low-frequency external electric field is applied. The Kubo formula for the conductivity is employed in the calculation. The single-particle eigenstates which depend on the strengths of the magnetic field, the SOI and modulation potential, are calculated and then used to determine the conductivity. We present numerical results for the conductivity along the channels as well as the tunneling conductivity perpendicular to the constrictions as functions of the modulation potential, the SOI and the magnetic field. We demonstrate that the effect of finite frequency is to related to the reduction of both the longitudinal and transverse conductivities.