Spectral and Transport Properties of Quantum Wires with Bond Disorder

Alexander Altland, Rainer Merkt

Published 2001-02-07Version 1

Systems with bond disorder are defined through lattice Hamiltonians that are of pure nearest neighbour hopping type, i.e. do not contain on-site contributions. Previous analyses based on the Dorokhov-Mello-Pereyra-Kumar (DMPK) transfer matrix technique have shown that both spectral and transport properties of quasi one-dimensional systems belonging to this category are highly unusual. Notably, regimes with absence of exponential Anderson localization are observed, the single particle density of states exhibits singular structure in the vicinity of the band centre, and the manifestation of these phenomena depends in an apparently topological manner on the even- or oddness of the channel number. In this paper we re-consider the problem from the complementary perspective of the non-linear sigma-model. Relying on the standard analogy between one-dimensional statistical field theories and zero-dimensional quantum mechanics, we will relate the problem to the behaviour of a quantum point particle subject to an Aharonov-Bohm flux. We will re-derive previous DMPK results, identify a new class of even/odd staggering phenomena and trace back the anomalous behaviour of the bond disordered system to a simple physical mechanism, viz. the flux periodicity of the quantum Aharonov-Bohm system. We will also touch upon connections to the low energy physics of other lattice systems, notably disordered chiral systems in 0 and 2 dimensions and antiferromagnetic spin chains.