Critical state of the Anderson transition: Between a metal and an insulator

Gabriel Lemarié (1, 2) , Hans Lignier (3, 4) , Dominique Delande (1) , Pascal Szriftgiser (3) , Jean Claude Garreau (3)

1 LKB (Jussieu) - Laboratoire Kastler Brossel
2 SPEC - UMR3680 - Service de physique de l'état condensé
3 PhLAM - Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules - UMR 8523
4 LAC - Laboratoire Aimé Cotton

Using a three-frequency one-dimensional kicked rotor experimentally realized with a cold atomic gas, we study the transport properties at the critical point of the metal-insulator Anderson transition. We accurately measure the time-evolution of an initially localized wavepacket and show that it displays at the critical point a scaling invariance characteristic of this second-order phase transition. The shape of the momentum distribution at the critical point is found to be in excellent agreement with the analytical form deduced from self-consistent theory of localization.

Mots clés: Cold atoms; Anderson transition; Anderson localization; kicked rotor; quantum chaos

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]; Gaz Quantiques [cond-mat.quant-gas]; Physique Atomique [physics.atom-ph]; Dynamique Chaotique [nlin.CD]

Gabriel Lemarié, Hans Lignier, Dominique Delande, Pascal Szriftgiser, Jean Claude Garreau. Critical state of the Anderson transition: Between a metal and an insulator. Physical Review Letters, 2010, 105 (9), pp.090601. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.090601⟩. ⟨hal-00482054⟩