Symmetries and weak (anti)localization of Dirac fermions in HgTe quantum wells

We perform a symmetry analysis of a 2D electron system in HgTe/HgCdTe quantum wells in the situation when the chemical potential is outside of the gap, so that the bulk of the quantum well is conducting. In order to investigate quantum transport properties of the system, we explore symmetries of the low-energy Hamiltonian which is expressed in terms of two flavors of Dirac fermions, and physically important symmetry-breaking mechanisms. This allows us to predict emerging patterns of symmetry breaking that control the weak localization and antilocalization showing up in transverse-field magnetoresistance.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure

Conductivity of disordered graphene at half filling

We study electron transport properties of a monoatomic graphite layer (graphene) with different types of disorder at half filling. We show that the transport properties of the system depend strongly on the symmetry of disorder. We find that the localization is ineffective if the randomness preserves one of the chiral symmetries of the clean Hamiltonian or does not mix valleys. We obtain the exact value of minimal conductivity $4e^2/\pi h$ in the case of chiral disorder. For long-range disorder (decoupled valleys), we derive the effective field theory. In the case of smooth random potential, it is a symplectic-class sigma model including a topological term with $\theta = \pi$. As a consequence, the system is at a quantum critical point with a universal value of the conductivity of the order of $e^2/h$. When the effective time reversal symmetry is broken, the symmetry class becomes unitary, and the conductivity acquires the value characteristic for the quantum Hall transition.Comment: 11 pages, 2 EPS figures; Proceedings of Graphene Conference, MPIPKS Dresden 200

Interaction-induced criticality in Z_2 topological insulators

Critical phenomena and quantum phase transitions are paradigmatic concepts in modern condensed matter physics. A central example in the field of mesoscopic physics is the localization-delocalization (metal-insulator) quantum phase transition driven by disorder -- the Anderson transition. Although the notion of localization has appeared half a century ago, this field is still full of surprising new developments. The most recent arenas where novel peculiar localization phenomena have been studied are graphene and topological insulators, i.e., bulk insulators with delocalized (topologically protected) states on their surface. Besides exciting physical properties, the topological protection renders such systems promising candidates for a variety of prospective electronic and spintronic devices. It is thus of crucial importance to understand properties of boundary metallic modes in the realistic systems when both disorder and interaction are present. Here we find a novel critical state which emerges in the bulk of two-dimensional quantum spin Hall (QSH) systems and on the surface of three-dimensional topological insulators with strong spin-orbit interaction due to the interplay of nontrivial Z_2 topology and the Coulomb repulsion. At low temperatures, this state possesses a universal value of electrical conductivity. In particular, we predict that the direct QSH phase transition occurs via this novel state. Remarkably, the interaction-induced critical state emerges on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator without any adjustable parameters. This ``self-organized quantum criticality'' is a novel concept in the field of interacting disordered systems.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Correlations of the local density of states in quasi-one-dimensional wires

We report a calculation of the correlation function of the local density of states in a disordered quasi-one-dimensional wire in the unitary symmetry class at a small energy difference. Using an expression from the supersymmetric sigma-model, we obtain the full dependence of the two-point correlation function on the distance between the points. In the limit of zero energy difference, our calculation reproduces the statistics of a single localized wave function. At logarithmically large distances of the order of the Mott scale, we obtain a reentrant behavior similar to that in strictly one-dimensional chains.Comment: Published version. Minor technical and notational improvements. 16 pages, 1 figur

Full counting statistics in disordered graphene at Dirac point: From ballistics to diffusion

The full counting statistics of the charge transport through an undoped graphene sheet in the presence of smooth disorder is studied. At the Dirac point both in clean and diffusive limits, transport properties of a graphene sample are described by the universal Dorokhov distribution of transmission probabilities. In the crossover regime, deviations from universality occur which can be studied analytically both on ballistic and diffusive sides. In the ballistic regime, we use a diagrammatic technique with matrix Green functions. For a diffusive system, the sigma model is applied. Our results are in good agreement with recent numerical simulations of electron transport in disordered graphene.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Metallic proximity effect in ballistic graphene with resonant scatterers

We study the effect of resonant scatterers on the local density of states in a rectangular graphene setup with metallic leads. We find that the density of states in a vicinity of the Dirac point acquires a strong position dependence due to both metallic proximity effect and impurity scattering. This effect may prevent uniform gating of weakly-doped samples. We also demonstrate that even a single-atom impurity may essentially alter electronic states at low-doping on distances of the order of the sample size from the impurity.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Instanton-induced Semi-hard Parton Interactions and Phenomenology of High Energy Hadron Collisions

We phenomenologically study whether partonic collisions responsible for the growth of hadron-hadron cross sections at high energy can be ascribed to instanton-induced processes. Although non-perturbative in nature, these interactions occur at the semi-hard scale $Q\sim 1-2$ GeV, and should therefore be described using information from deep inelastic leptonic scattering on the partonic constituents in nucleons, pions, and photons. After considering shadowing corrections in nucleon-nucleon scattering, we fix a free instanton tail suppression parameter and determine the effective quark-quark cross section. The resulting contributions to $NN$, $\pi N$, $\gamma N$, and $\gamma\gamma$ cross sections all $increase$ with energy differently, but in reasonable agreement with experimental data. We then proceed to an estimate of the number of such processes present in high energy Au-Au collisions at RHIC, finding that the amount of entropy produced by instanton/sphaleron events matches the observed amount.Comment: 7 pages RevTeX4, 1 .eps figur

Diffusion and criticality in undoped graphene with resonant scatterers

A general theory is developed to describe graphene with arbitrary number of isolated impurities. The theory provides a basis for an efficient numerical analysis of the charge transport and is applied to calculate the minimal conductivity of graphene with resonant scatterers. In the case of smooth resonant impurities conductivity grows logarithmically with increasing impurity concentration, in agreement with renormalization group analysis for the symmetry class DIII. For vacancies (or strong on-site potential impurities) the conductivity saturates at a constant value that depends on the vacancy distribution among two sublattices as expected for the symmetry class BDI.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure