Effect of Strong Disorder in a 3-Dimensional Topological Insulator: Phase Diagram and Maps of the Z2 Invariant

We study the effect of strong disorder in a 3-dimensional topological insulators with time-reversal symmetry and broken inversion symmetry. Firstly, using level statistics analysis, we demonstrate the persistence of delocalized bulk states even at large disorder. The delocalized spectrum is seen to display the levitation and pair annihilation effect, indicating that the delocalized states continue to carry the Z2 invariant after the onset of disorder. Secondly, the Z2 invariant is computed via twisted boundary conditions using an efficient numerical algorithm. We demonstrate that the Z2 invariant remains quantized and non-fluctuating even after the spectral gap becomes filled with dense localized states. In fact, our results indicate that the Z2 invariant remains quantized until the mobility gap closes or until the Fermi level touches the mobility edges. Based on such data, we compute the phase diagram of the Bi2Se3 topological material as function of disorder strength and position of the Fermi level.Comment: references added; final versio

Cross-over from retro to specular Andreev reflections in bilayer graphene

Ongoing experimental progress in the preparation of ultra-clean graphene/superconductor (SC) interfaces enabled the recent observation of specular interband Andreev reflections (AR) at bilayer graphene (BLG)/NbSe$_{2}$ van der Waals interfaces [Nature Physics 12, (2016)]. Motivated by this experiment we theoretically study the differential conductance across a BLG/SC interface at the continuous transition from high to ultra-low Fermi energies $E_{F}$ in BLG. Using the Bogoliubov-deGennes equations and the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk formalism we derive analytical expressions for the differential conductance across the BLG/SC interface. We find a characteristic signature of the cross-over from intra-band retro- (high $E_{F}$) to inter-band specular (low $E_{F}$) ARs, that manifests itself in a strongly suppressed interfacial conductance when the excitation energy $|\varepsilon |=|E_{F}|<\Delta$ (the SC gap). The sharpness of these conductance dips is strongly dependent on the size of the potential step at the BLG/SC interface $U_{0}$

Transition from insulating to a non-insulating temperature dependence of the conductivity in granular metals

We consider interaction effects in a granular normal metal at not very low temperatures. Assuming that all weak localization effects are suppressed by the temperature we replace the initial Hamiltonian by a proper functional of phases and study the possibility for a phase transition depending on the tunneling conductance $g$. It is demonstrated for any dimension that, while at small $g$ the conductivity decays with temperature exponentially, its temperature dependence is logarithmic at large $g.$ The formulae obtained are compared with an existing experiment and a good agreement is found.Comment: 9 pages, a mistake is corrected and several formulae adde

Parametric Level Correlations in Random-Matrix Models

We show that parametric level correlations in random-matrix theories are closely related to a breaking of the symmetry between the advanced and the retarded Green's functions. The form of the parametric level correlation function is the same as for the disordered case considered earlier by Simons and Altshuler and is given by the graded trace of the commutator of the saddle--point solution with the particular matrix that describes the symmetry breaking in the actual case of interest. The strength factor differs from the case of disorder. It is determined solely by the Goldstone mode. It is essentially given by the number of levels that are strongly mixed as the external parameter changes. The factor can easily be estimated in applications.Comment: 8 page

Supersymmetry for disordered systems with interaction

Considering disordered electron systems we suggest a scheme that allows us to include an electron-electron interaction into a supermatrix sigma-model. The method is based on replacing the initial model of interacting electons by a fully supersymmetric model. Although this replacement is not exact, it is a good approximation for a weak short range interaction and arbitrary disorder. The replacement makes the averaging over disorder and further manipulations straightforward and we come to a supermatrix sigma-model containing an interaction term. The structure of the model is rather similar to the replica one, although the interaction term has a different form. We study the model making perturbation theory and renormalization group calculations. We check the renormalizability of the model in the first loop approximation and in the first order in the interaction. In this limit we reproduce the renormalization group equations known from earlier works. We hope that the new supermatrix sigma-model may become a new tool for non-perturbative calculations for disordered systems with interaction.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, published version with minor change

A semiclassical theory of the Anderson transition

We study analytically the metal-insulator transition in a disordered conductor by combining the self-consistent theory of localization with the one parameter scaling theory. We provide explicit expressions of the critical exponents and the critical disorder as a function of the spatial dimensionality, $d$. The critical exponent $\nu$ controlling the divergence of the localization length at the transition is found to be $\nu = {1 \over 2}+ {1 \over {d-2}}$. This result confirms that the upper critical dimension is infinity. Level statistics are investigated in detail. We show that the two level correlation function decays exponentially and the number variance is linear with a slope which is an increasing function of the spatial dimensionality.Comment: 4 pages, journal versio