Phase diagram of the Anderson transition with atomic matter waves

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates the phase diagram of the Anderson metal-insulator transition using cold atom systems, demonstrating control over disorder and anisotropy, and validating theoretical models with numerical and experimental data.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental realization of a controllable 3D Anderson model with adjustable anisotropy, bridging theory, simulation, and experiment.

Findings

Experimental validation of the Anderson transition phase diagram.

Good agreement between numerical simulations and experimental results.

Theoretical analysis accurately describes the observed behavior.

Abstract

We realize experimentally a cold atom system equivalent to the 3D Anderson model of disordered solids where the anisotropy can be controlled by adjusting an experimentally accessible parameter. This allows us to study experimentally the disorder vs anisotropy phase diagram of the Anderson metal-insulator transition. Numerical and experimental data compare very well with each other and a theoretical analysis based on the self-consistent theory of localization correctly discribes the observed behavior, illustrating the flexibility of cold atom experiments for the study of transport phenomena in complex quantum systems.