{
  "id": "1604.01006",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2016-04-04T19:56:21.000Z",
  "updated": "2016-04-04T19:56:21.000Z",
  "title": "Metal-insulator transition in disordered systems from the one-body density matrix",
  "authors": [
    "Thomas Olsen",
    "Raffaele Resta",
    "Ivo Souza"
  ],
  "comment": "5 pages",
  "categories": [
    "cond-mat.dis-nn",
    "cond-mat.mtrl-sci"
  ],
  "abstract": "The insulating state of matter can be probed by means of a ground state geometrical marker, which is closely related to the modern theory of polarization (based on a Berry phase). In the present work we show that this marker can be applied to determine the metal-insulator transition in disordered systems. In particular, for non-interacting systems the geometrical marker can be obtained from the configurational average of the norm-squared one-body density matrix, which can be calculated within open as well as periodic boundary conditions. This is in sharp contrast to a classification based on the static conductivity, which is only sensible within periodic boundary conditions. We exemplify the method by considering a simple lattice model, known to have a metal-insulator transition as a function of the disorder strength and demonstrate that the transition point can be obtained accurately from the one-body density matrix. The approach has a general {\\it ab-initio} formulation and can be applied to realistic disordered materials by standard electronic structure methods.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2016-04-04T19:56:21.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "metal-insulator transition",
      "disordered systems",
      "periodic boundary conditions",
      "standard electronic structure methods",
      "ground state geometrical marker"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 5,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}