Absence of Mobility Edge in Short-Range Uncorrelated Disordered Model: Coexistence of Localized and Extended States

Unlike the well-known Mott's argument that extended and localized states should not coexist at the same energy in a generic random potential, we formulate the main principles and provide an example of a nearest-neighbor tight-binding disordered model which carries both localized and extended states without forming the mobility edge. Unexpectedly, this example appears to be given by a well-studied fi ensemble with independently distributed random diagonal potential and inhomogeneous kinetic hopping terms. In order to analytically tackle the problem, we locally map the above model to the 1D Anderson model with matrix-size- and position-dependent hopping and confirm the coexistence of localized and extended states, which is shown to be robust to the perturbations of both potential and kinetic terms due to the separation of the above states in space. In addition, the mapping shows that the extended states are nonergodic and allows one to analytically estimate their fractal dimensions.

Automated summary

In this study, we introduce a new discrete model that exhibits both localized and extended states without forming a mobility edge. By locally mapping the model, we confirm the coexistence of localized and extended states and analytically estimate the fractal dimensions of the extended states.