Quantum criticality and the metal-insulator transition in 2D: a critical test

TL;DR

This paper proposes an experimental approach to determine if the zero-temperature transition in a disordered 2D electron gas is a genuine quantum phase transition, based on scaling laws derived from heavy fermion physics.

Contribution

It introduces a set of experimentally testable scaling laws linking density, temperature, chemical potential, and effective mass near the transition.

Findings

Derived scaling laws for chemical potential and effective mass

Proposed experimental strategy for identifying quantum phase transitions

Provides a framework to distinguish true quantum criticality in 2D systems

Abstract

Using recent insights obtained in heavy fermion physics on the thermodynamic singularity structure associated with quantum phase transitions, we present here an experimental strategy to establish if the zero-temperature transition in the disordered two dimensional gas is a real quantum phase transition. We derive a overcomplete set of scaling laws relating the density and temperature dependence of the chemical potential and the effective mass, which are in principle verifyable by experiment.