Abstract
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 wave packet 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 the self-consistent theory of localization.
- Received 7 May 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.090601
© 2010 The American Physical Society
Synopsis
Airy insight into the physics of Anderson localization
Published 24 August 2010
A theoretical model and its experimental realization in a cold atomic gas pin down the nature of the criticality for a particular realization of the three-dimensional metal-insulator Anderson transition.
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