# Anomalous transport in the Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper model in isolated and open systems

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the transport properties of the Aubry-Andre9-Harper model at high temperature, revealing super-diffusive behavior at criticality in isolated systems and sub-diffusive scaling in open systems, with insights into eigenfunction boundary effects.

## Contribution

It provides new insights into the transport dynamics at the critical point of the AAH model, highlighting the role of boundary eigenfunctions in open system transport scaling.

## Key findings

- Super-diffusive wavepacket spread at criticality in isolated systems.
- Sub-diffusive current scaling in open systems at the critical point.
- Distinct particle density profiles in different phases.

## Abstract

We study the high temperature transport behavior of the Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper (AAH) model, both in the isolated thermodynamic limit and in the open system. At the critical point of the AAH model, we find hints of super-diffusive behavior from the scaling of spread of an initially localized wavepacket. On the other hand, when connected to two baths with different chemical potentials at the two ends, we find that the critical point shows clear sub-diffusive scaling of current with system size. We provide an explanation of this by showing that the current scaling with system-size is entirely governed by the behavior of the single particle eigenfunctions at the boundary sites where baths are attached. We also look at the particle density profile in non-equilibrium steady state of the open system when the two baths are at different chemical potentials. We find that the particle density profile has distinctly different behavior in the delocalized, critical and localized phases of the AAH model.