Spectral properties of three-dimensional Anderson model

TL;DR

This paper reviews key results of the 3D Anderson model and uses modern numerical methods to compare level sensitivity and level statistics, revealing consistent indicators of the localization transition.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical comparison of two conductance measures and analyzes spectral properties at the localization transition with high accuracy.

Findings

Both conductance measures predict a similar critical point.

Spectral form factor at criticality shows a time-independent regime.

Scaling analysis confirms transition point and scaling coefficients with high precision.

Abstract

The three-dimensional Anderson model represents a paradigmatic model to understand the Anderson localization transition. In this work we first review some key results obtained for this model in the past 50 years, and then study its properties from the perspective of modern numerical approaches. Our main focus is on the quantitative comparison between the level sensitivity statistics and the level statistics. While the former studies the sensitivity of Hamiltonian eigenlevels upon inserting a magnetic flux, the latter studies the properties of unperturbed eigenlevels. We define two versions of dimensionless conductance, the first corresponding to the width of the level curvature distribution relative to the mean level spacing, and the second corresponding to the ratio of the Heisenberg and the Thouless time obtained from the spectral form factor. We show that both conductances look remarkably similar around the localization transition, in particular, they predict a nearly identical critical point consistent with other measures of the transition. We then study some further properties of those quantities: for level curvatures, we discuss particular similarities and differences between the width of the level curvature distribution and the characteristic energy studied by Edwards and Thouless in their pioneering work [J. Phys. C. 5, 807 (1972)]. In the context of the spectral form factor, we show that at the critical point it enters a broad time-independent regime, in which its value is consistent with the level compressibility obtained from the level variance. Finally, we test the scaling solution of the average level spacing ratio in the crossover regime using the cost function minimization approach introduced in [Phys. Rev. B. 102, 064207 (2020)]. We find that the extracted transition point and the scaling coefficient agree with those from the literature to high numerical accuracy.