Levitation of Current Carrying States in the Lattice Model for the Integer Quantum Hall Effect

The disorder driven quantum Hall to insulator transition is investigated for a two-dimensional lattice model. The Hall conductivity and the localization length are calculated numerically near the transition. For uncorrelated and weakly correlated disorder potentials the current carrying states are annihilated by the negative Chern states originating from the band center. In the presence of correlated disorder potentials with correlation length larger than approximately half the lattice constant the floating up of the critical states in energy without merging is observed. This behavior is similar to the levitation scenario proposed for the continuum model.Comment: 4 pages incl. 4 eps-figures. Published versio

Floating of critical states and the QH to insulator transition

The transition from the quantum Hall state to the insulator is considered for non-interacting electrons in a two-dimensional disordered lattice model with perpendicular magnetic field. Using correlated random disorder potentials the floating up of the critical states can be observed in a similar way as in the continuum model. Thus, the peculiar behaviour of the lattice models reported previously originates in the special choice of uncorrelated random disorder potentials.Comment: 4 pages incl. 4 eps-figures. Proceedings of SemiMag2000, Matsue, Japan. To be published in Physica

Disorder-driven splitting of the conductance peak at the Dirac point in graphene

The electronic properties of a bricklayer model, which shares the same topology as the hexagonal lattice of graphene, are investigated numerically. We study the influence of random magnetic-field disorder in addition to a strong perpendicular magnetic field. We found a disorder-driven splitting of the longitudinal conductance peak within the narrow lowest Landau band near the Dirac point. The energy splitting follows a relation which is proportional to the square root of the magnetic field and linear in the disorder strength. We calculate the scale invariant peaks of the two-terminal conductance and obtain the critical exponents as well as the multifractal properties of the chiral and quantum Hall states. We found approximate values $\nu\approx 2.5$ for the quantum Hall states, but $\nu=0.33\pm 0.1$ for the divergence of the correlation length of the chiral state at E=0 in the presence of a strong magnetic field. Within the central $n=0$ Landau band, the multifractal properties of both the chiral and the split quantum Hall states are the same, showing a parabolic $f[\alpha(s)]$ distribution with $\alpha(0)=2.27\pm 0.02$. In the absence of the constant magnetic field, the chiral critical state is determined by $\alpha(0)=2.14\pm 0.02$

Critical wave-packet dynamics in the power-law bond disordered Anderson Model

We investigate the wave-packet dynamics of the power-law bond disordered one-dimensional Anderson model with hopping amplitudes decreasing as $H_{nm}\propto |n-m|^{-\alpha}$. We consider the critical case ($\alpha=1$). Using an exact diagonalization scheme on finite chains, we compute the participation moments of all stationary energy eigenstates as well as the spreading of an initially localized wave-packet. The eigenstates multifractality is characterized by the set of fractal dimensions of the participation moments. The wave-packet shows a diffusive-like spread developing a power-law tail and achieves a stationary non-uniform profile after reflecting at the chain boundaries. As a consequence, the time-dependent participation moments exhibit two distinct scaling regimes. We formulate a finite-size scaling hypothesis for the participation moments relating their scaling exponents to the ones governing the return probability and wave-function power-law decays

Quantum-Hall to insulator transition

The crossover from the quantum Hall regime to the Hall-insulator is investigated by varying the strength of the diagonal disorder in a 2d tight-binding model. The Hall and longitudinal conductivities and the behavior of the critical states are calculated numerically. We find that with increasing disorder the current carrying states close to the band center disappear first. Simultaneously, the quantized Hall conductivity drops monotonically to zero also from higher quantized values.Comment: 5 pages LaTeX2e, 5 ps-figures included. Proceedings SemiMag13, Nijmegen 1998; to appear in Physica

Critical conductance of two-dimensional chiral systems with random magnetic flux

The zero temperature transport properties of two-dimensional lattice systems with static random magnetic flux per plaquette and zero mean are investigated numerically. We study the two-terminal conductance and its dependence on energy, sample size, and magnetic flux strength. The influence of boundary conditions and of the oddness of the number of sites in the transverse direction is also studied. We confirm the existence of a critical chiral state in the middle of the energy band and calculate the critical exponent nu=0.35 +/- 0.03 for the divergence of the localization length. The sample averaged scale independent critical conductance _c turns out to be a function of the amplitude of the flux fluctuations whereas the variance of the respective conductance distributions appears to be universal. All electronic states outside of the band center are found to be localized.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev.

Metal-insulator transitions in anisotropic 2d systems

Several phenomena related to the critical behaviour of non-interacting electrons in a disordered 2d tight-binding system with a magnetic field are studied. Localization lengths, critical exponents and density of states are computed using transfer matrix techniques. Scaling functions of isotropic systems are recovered once the dimension of the system in each direction is chosen proportional to the localization length. It is also found that the critical point is independent of the propagation direction, and that the critical exponents for the localization length for both propagating directions are equal to that of the isotropic system (approximately 7/3). We also calculate the critical value of the scaling function for both the isotropic and the anisotropic system. It is found that the isotropic value equals the geometric mean of the two anisotropic values. Detailed numerical studies of the density of states for the isotropic system reveals that for an appreciable amount of disorder the critical energy is off the band center.Comment: 6 pages RevTeX, 6 figures included, submitted to Physical Review