Observation of the Anderson Metal-Insulator Transition with Atomic Matter Waves: Theory and Experiment

TL;DR

This paper combines experimental and theoretical approaches using cold atomic gases to observe and analyze the three-dimensional Anderson metal-insulator transition, confirming its universality and critical exponents.

Contribution

It provides the first unambiguous experimental demonstration of the Anderson transition with precise measurement of critical exponents using atomic matter waves.

Findings

Confirmed the existence of the Anderson transition in 3D.

Measured the critical exponent as ν=1.59±0.01.

Validated the universality class of the transition.

Abstract

Using a cold atomic gas exposed to laser pulses -- a realization of the chaotic quasiperiodic kicked rotor with three incommensurate frequencies -- we study experimentally and theoretically the Anderson metal-insulator transition in three dimensions. Sensitive measurements of the atomic wavefunction and the use of finite-size scaling techniques make it possible to unambiguously demonstrate the existence of a quantum phase transition and to measure its critical exponents. By taking proper account of systematic corrections to one-parameter scaling, we show the universality of the critical exponent $\nu=1.59\pm0.01,$ which is found to be equal to the one previously computed for the Anderson model.