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Model for continuous thermal metal to insulator transition

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

Chao-Ming Jian
Zhen Bi
Cenke Xu

Abstract

We propose a d-dimensional interacting Majorana fermion model with quenched disorder, which gives us a continuous quantum phase transition between a diffusive thermal metal phase with a finite entropy density to an insulator phase with zero entropy density. This model is based on coupled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model clusters, and hence has a controlled large-N limit. The metal-insulator transition is accompanied by a spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking. We perform controlled calculations to show that the energy diffusion constant jumps to zero discontinuously at the metal-insulator transition, while the time-reversal symmetry-breaking order parameter increases continuously. © 2017 American Physical Society.

Date Published

Journal

Physical Review B

Volume

96

Issue

11

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85030096613&doi=10.1103%2fPhysRevB.96.115122&partnerID=40&md5=3624a293738efedc98f3912b58cef169

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevB.96.115122

Group (Lab)

Chao-Ming Jian Group

Funding Source

1151208

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