No Arabic abstract
We present a thorough pedagogical analysis of the single particle localization phenomenon in a quasiperiodic lattice in one dimension. Description of disorder in the lattice is represented by the Aubry-Andre model. Characterization of localization is performed through the analysis of both, stationary and dynamical properties. The stationary properties investigated are the inverse participation ratio (IPR), the normalized participation ratio (NPR) and the energy spectrum as a function of the disorder strength. As expected, the distinctive Hofstadter pattern is found. Two dynamical quantities allow discerning the localization phenomenon, being the spreading of an initially localized state and the evolution of population imbalance in even and odd sites across the lattice.
We investigate the localization properties of a spin chain with an antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbour coupling, subject to an external quasiperiodic on-site magnetic field. The quasiperiodic modulation interpolates between two paradigmatic models, namely the Aubry-Andre and the Fibonacci models. We find that stronger many-body interactions extend the ergodic phase in the former, whereas they shrink it in the latter. Furthermore, the many-body localization transition points at the two limits of the interpolation appear to be continuously connected along the deformation. As a result, the position of the many-body localization transition depends on the interaction strength for an intermediate degree of deformation of the quasiperiodic modulation. Moreover, in the region of parameter space where the single-particle spectrum contains both localized and extended states, many-body interactions induce an anomalous effect: weak interactions localize the system, whereas stronger interactions enhance ergodicity. We map the models localization phase diagram using the decay of the quenched spin imbalance in relatively long chains. This is accomplished employing a time-dependent variational approach applied to a matrix product state decomposition of the many-body state. Our model serves as a rich playground for testing many-body localization under tunable potentials.
The Aubry-Andre model is a one-dimensional lattice model for quasicrystals with localized and delocalized phases. At the localization transition point, the system displays fractal spectrum, which relates to the Hofstadter butterfly. In this work, we uncover the exact self-similarity structures in the energy spectrum. We separate the fractal structures into two parts: the fractal filling positions of gaps and the scaling of gap sizes. We show that the fractal fillings emerge for a certain type of incommensurate periodicity regardless of potential strength. However, the power-law scaling of gap sizes is characteristic for general incommensurability at the critical point of the model.
A generalization of the Aubry-Andre-Harper (AAH) model is developed, containing a tunable phase shift between on-site and off-diagonal modulations. A localization transition can be induced by varying just this phase, keeping all other model parameters constant. The complete localization phase diagram is obtained. Unlike the original AAH model, the generalized model can exhibit a transition between topologically trivial bandstructures and topologically non-trivial bandstructures containing protected boundary states. These boundary states can be pumped across the system by adiabatic variations in the phase shift parameter. The model can also be used to demonstrate the phenomenon of adiabatic pumping breakdown due to localization.
We study one-dimensional optical lattices described by generalized Aubry-Andre models that include both commensurate and incommensurate modulations of the hopping amplitude. This brings together two interesting features of this class of systems: Anderson localization and the existence of topological edge states. We follow changes of the single-particle energy spectrum induced by variations of the system parameters, with focus on the survival of topological states in the localized regime.
We study a one-dimensional quasiperiodic system described by the off-diagonal Aubry-Andr{e} model and investigate its phase diagram by using the symmetry and the multifractal analysis. It was shown in a recent work ({it Phys. Rev. B} {bf 93}, 205441 (2016)) that its phase diagram was divided into three regions, dubbed the extended, the topologically-nontrivial localized and the topologically-trivial localized phases, respectively. Out of our expectation, we find an additional region of the extended phase which can be mapped into the original one by a symmetry transformation. More unexpectedly, in both localized phases, most of the eigenfunctions are neither localized nor extended. Instead, they display critical features, that is, the minimum of the singularity spectrum is in a range $0<gamma_{min}<1$ instead of $0$ for the localized state or $1$ for the extended state. Thus, a mixed phase is found with a mixture of localized and critical eigenfunctions.