Critical properties of the Anderson transition in random graphs: two-parameter scaling theory, Kosterlitz-Thouless type flow and many-body localization

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Anderson transition on random graphs, revealing a Kosterlitz-Thouless type flow, two distinct diverging lengths with different critical exponents, and strong parallels with many-body localization phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a two-parameter scaling theory for the Anderson transition on graphs, identifying a Kosterlitz-Thouless flow and distinct critical behaviors of localization lengths.

Findings

Identifies a Kosterlitz-Thouless type flow in the Anderson transition.

Discovers two localization lengths with different critical exponents.

Shows universality of the transition properties across different network models.

Abstract

The Anderson transition in random graphs has raised great interest, partly because of its analogy with the many-body localization (MBL) transition. Unlike the latter, many results for random graphs are now well established, in particular the existence and precise value of a critical disorder separating a localized from an ergodic delocalized phase. However, the renormalization group flow and the nature of the transition are not well understood. In turn, recent works on the MBL transition have made the remarkable prediction that the flow is of Kosterlitz-Thouless type. Here we show that the Anderson transition on graphs displays the same type of flow. Our work attests to the importance of rare branches along which wave functions have a much larger localization length $\xi_\parallel$ than the one in the transverse direction, $\xi_\perp$. Importantly, these two lengths have different critical behaviors: $\xi_\parallel$ diverges with a critical exponent $\nu_\parallel=1$, while $\xi_\perp$ reaches a finite universal value ${\xi_\perp^c}$ at the transition point $W_c$. Indeed, $\xi_\perp^{-1} \approx {\xi_\perp^c}^{-1} + \xi^{-1}$, with $\xi \sim (W-W_c)^{-\nu_\perp}$ associated with a new critical exponent $\nu_\perp = 1/2$, where $\exp( \xi)$ controls finite-size effects. The delocalized phase inherits the strongly non-ergodic properties of the critical regime at short scales, but is ergodic at large scales, with a unique critical exponent $\nu=1/2$. This shows a very strong analogy with the MBL transition: the behavior of $\xi_\perp$ is identical to that recently predicted for the typical localization length of MBL in a phenomenological renormalization group flow. We demonstrate these important properties for a smallworld complex network model and show the universality of our results by considering different network parameters and different key observables of Anderson localization.