Supersymmetry on a lattice and Dirac fermions in a random vector potential

TL;DR

This paper investigates two-dimensional Dirac fermions in a random non-Abelian vector potential using lattice regularization, revealing a phase transition and algebraic decay of correlations due to chiral symmetry effects.

Contribution

It introduces a lattice supersymmetry approach to study phase structure and topological effects in Dirac fermions with non-Abelian disorder.

Findings

A phase transition occurs at a critical disorder strength.

Correlation functions decay algebraically at the band center.

Topologically nontrivial configurations are included in the analysis.

Abstract

We study two-dimensional Dirac fermions in a random non-Abelian vector potential by using lattice regularization. We consider U(N) random vector potential for large $N$. The ensemble average with respect to random vector potential is taken by using lattice supersymmetry which we introduced before in order to investigate phase structure of supersymmetric gauge theory. We show that a phase transition occurs at a certain critical disorder strength. The ground state and low-energy excitations are studied in detail in the strong-disorder phase. Correlation function of the fermion local density of states decays algebraically at the band center because of a quasi-long-range order of chiral symmetry and the chiral anomaly cancellation in the lattice regularization (the species doubling). In the present study, we use the lattice regularization and also the Haar measure of U(N) for the average over the random vector potential. Therefore topologically nontrivial configurations of the vector potential are all included in the average. Implication of the present results for the system of Dirac fermions in a random vector potential with noncompact Gaussian distribution is discussed.