Near Critical States of Random Dirac Fermions

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates two-dimensional random Dirac fermions, revealing critical zero-energy states with non-localized behavior, a vanishing density of states, and unique spectral statistics indicative of a critical phase.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of critical states at zero energy in a 2D random Dirac fermion system, with novel spectral and localization properties.

Findings

Zero-energy states are critical and do not localize.

Density of states vanishes as a power law with energy.

Level-spacing distribution shows critical behavior.

Abstract

Random Dirac fermions in a two-dimensional space are studied numerically. We realize them on a square lattice using the $\pi$-flux model with random hopping. The system preserves two symmetries, the time-reversal symmetry and the symmetry denoted by ${{\cal H},\gamma}=0$ with a $4\times 4$ matrix $\gamma $ in an effective field theory. Although it belongs to the orthogonal ensemble, the zero-energy states do not localize and become critical. The density of states vanishes at zero energy as $\sim E^{\alpha}$ and the exponent $\alpha$ changes with strength of the randomness, which implies the existence of the critical line. Rapid growth of the localization length near zero energy is suggested and the eigenstates near zero energy exhibit anomalous behaviour which can be interpreted as a critical slowing down in the available finite-size system. The level-spacing distributions close to zero energy deviate from both the Wigner surmise and the Poissonian, and exhibit critical behaviour which reflects the existence of critical states at zero energy.