Disordered Systems in Phase Space

Abstract

As a function of the disorder strength in a mesoscopic system, the electron dynamics crosses over from the ballistic through the diffusive towards the localized regime. The ballistic and the localized situation correspond to integrable or regular behavior while diffusive conductors correspond to chaotic behavior. The chaotic or regular character of single wave functions can be inferred from phase space concepts like the Husimi distribution and the Wehrl entropy. These quantities provide useful information about the structure of states in disordered systems. We investigate the phase space structure of one dimensional (1d) and 2d disordered systems within the Anderson model. The Wehrl entropy of the eigenstates allows to detect the crossover between the ballistic, diffusive and localized regime.Comment: 4 pages, requires annmod.cls (included). A version with full resolution figures is available from http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/theo1/ingold/e/publrev.htm