# Disorder Induced Phase Transition for Random 2D Dirac Fermions

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## Abstract

We present evidence that two dimensional Dirac fermions in the presence of random Abelian gauge potential exhibit a phase transition when the disorder strength exceeds a certain critical value. We argue that this phase transition has novel properties unique to disordered systems. It resembles in many ways the transition from dilute to dense polymers phase in two dimension. In particular, we argue that the central charge of the disordered Dirac fermions, being $`c=0`$ before the transition, changes to $`c=2`$. We discuss possible implications to quantum Hall transitions, in view of recently proposed model for quantum Hall transitions with $`c=2`$.

71.10.Pm, 64.60.-i, 73.40.Hm

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The study of two dimensional Dirac fermions in the context of quantum Hall effect was initiated in Ref. . These fermions exhibit an integer quantum Hall transition as the value of their mass is tuned through zero. Unfortunately, for pure fermions this transition lies in a universality class different from the one observed in quantum Hall effect experiments, with the exponents of the Ising model. In order to model the more realistic situation, various types of disorder should be turned on. Usually three types of disorder are studied, random mass, random scalar potential and random gauge potential. Random mass turns out to be irrelevant in the renormalization group sense and the critical properties of the transition do not change as we turn it on. Random gauge potential results in the critical line, with the critical properties of the transition continuously dependent on the disorder strength. And the random scalar potential turns out to be relevant, flowing away to some unknown critical point.

It was further argued in Ref.  that in order to simulate the realistic quantum Hall transition, all three types of randomness should be present. That causes the system to flow to a strongly coupled critical point with unknown properties. This critical point should be in the same universality class as the generic quantum Hall transitions, usually described by the Pruisken sigma model  (see  for its supersymmetric version). There is very little we can say about the properties of that critical point, except we might expect the effective field theory which describes it to have central charge $`c=0`$.

In view of the difficulty of approaching the generic situation, a number of papers concentrated on the properties of critical line generated by the presence of random gauge potential .

It appears that the correlation functions of such disordered fermions are very easy to calculate. Indeed, there are several methods available, all of them result in the correlation functions continuously dependent on the disorder strength .

However, in this letter we will show that previous treatments were somewhat careless. In fact, the correlation functions of the Dirac fermions in the presence of random gauge potential depend continuously on the disorder strength up to a certain critical value. If we continue to increase the strength of the disorder beyond that value, the critical properties of the correlation functions stop being dependent on the disorder strength. The system as a whole undergoes a phase transition. The density of states at zero energy is zero below the transition and is a constant above it. And we argue that the effective field theory describing that critical line changes considerably. Its central charge was $`c=0`$ below the transition, and it changes to $`c=2`$ above the transition. We draw a direct parallel with the theory of polymers (self avoiding random walks) in two dimensions. They are known to undergo a phase transition called dilute to dense polymer transition. The central charge of the effective field theory describing polymers changes from $`c=0`$ to $`c=2`$ . Moreover, we will see that the field theories describing the dilute and dense polymer phases and those describing the two phases of the fermions with random gauge potential are closely related.

In fact, the first evidence of this phase transition showed up in Ref. . There the multifractal exponents of the zero energy wave function of the Dirac fermions with random gauge potential has been calculated exactly. It was discovered that these exponents change sharply as the disorder strength exceeds a certain value. Evidently this behavior is just another manifestation of the phase transition discussed in this letter.

We will conclude with discussing the implications of this transition for the not yet established theory of the integer quantum Hall transitions. It appears that a natural way to approach the generic quantum Hall transition point is to turn on strong random gauge potential. That generates the constant density of states expected at the generic quantum Hall transition, and changes the central charge of the theory from $`c=0`$ to $`c=2`$. After that, we may want to turn on random mass and random scalar potential, following the logic of . The theory will then flow to a critical point which, contrary to a naive belief, will not be a $`c=0`$ theory. This may shed new light on the recent proposal that the physics of quantum Hall transitions should be captured by a $`c=2`$ theory . However, the connection to the model proposed in  is at this stage purely speculative.

Now we proceed with the derivation of this phase transition. To begin with, let us fix the notations. We study the two dimensional Dirac fermions $`\psi `$, $`\overline{\psi }`$ in the presence of gauge potential $`A_\mu `$ with the Hamiltonian

$$H=d^2x\overline{\psi }\left(i_\mu A_\mu \right)\sigma _\mu \psi +ϵ\overline{\psi }\psi ,$$
(1)   
where $`\sigma _1\sigma _x`$, $`\sigma _2\sigma _y`$ are Pauli matrices and $`ϵ`$ is the energy. $`A_\mu `$ is supposed to be random with the probability density

$$P\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{g}d^2xA_\mu ^2\right),$$
(2)   
where $`g`$ is the disorder strength. It is convenient at this stage to decompose $`A_\mu `$ into a physical part $`\varphi `$ and a pure gauge $`\chi `$, following ,

$$A_\mu =_\mu \chi +ϵ_{\mu \nu }_\nu \varphi ,$$
(3)   
where $`ϵ_{\mu \nu }`$ is the antisymmetric tensor.

In terms of the fields $`\chi `$ and $`\varphi `$ the probability density becomes

$$P\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{g}d^2x\left(\left(_\mu \varphi \right)^2+\left(_\mu \chi \right)^2\right)d^2x_\mu \theta _\mu \overline{\theta }\right]$$
(4)   
where the anticommuting fields $`\theta `$ and $`\overline{\theta }`$ provide for the Jacobian of the variable change from $`A_\mu `$ to $`\varphi `$ and $`\chi `$ (see Ref. ).

The simplest way to compute the correlation functions of (1) is to use the bosonization technique. These correlation functions can be obtained with the help of the following path integral

$$Z=𝒟\phi \mathrm{exp}\left[d^2x\left(\left(_\mu \phi \right)^2+iϵ_{\mu \nu }A_\mu _\nu \phi \right)\right].$$
(5)   
It is very easy to compute the partition function $`Z`$ by completing the square,

$$Z=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{4}d^2x\left(_\mu \varphi \right)^2\right]$$
(6)   
which is the effective action of the celebrated Schwinger model.

To compute an averaged correlation function of a physical operator, say $`\psi (z)\mathrm{exp}(\phi (z))`$ or any other object $`X`$, we need to average the following path integral

$$X=\frac{𝒟\phi X\mathrm{exp}\left[d^2x\left(\left(_\mu \phi \right)^2+iϵ_{\mu \nu }A_\mu _\nu \phi \right)\right]}{Z}$$
(7)   
over the random $`A_\mu `$. With the help of (6) it becomes

$$X=𝒟\phi X\mathrm{exp}\left[d^2x\left(_\mu \phi +\frac{i}{2}_\mu \varphi \right)^2\right].$$
(8)   
From this point on, we could proceed in two different ways. One of them would be to calculate the correlation function of $`X`$ and then average it over the random $`A_\mu `$ (that is, $`\varphi `$) with the help of (4). The other way would be to average the path integral (8) over the random $`A_\mu `$ first and then calculate the correlation function. In a quite intriguing way, these two methods do not produce the same results.

Let us first proceed in the former way. We choose the left moving Dirac fermion $`\psi (z)\mathrm{exp}\left(i\phi (z)\right)`$ as the object $`X`$ whose correlation functions we would want to compute. We then compute the correlation function of $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i\phi (z)\right)`$ by shifting the variable of integration $`\phi `$ by the amount proportional to $`i\varphi `$. Then we average over the random $`\varphi `$ with the help of (4) (averaging over $`\chi `$ and $`\theta `$, $`\overline{\theta }`$ is irrelevant as these fields completely drop out of any physical correlation function). As a result, we discover that the dimension of the field $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i\phi (z)\right)`$, being equal to $`1/2`$ without the disorder, becomes $`1/2g/8`$ in presence of disorder. Thus we reproduced the standard result of .

However we should become suspicious of this result. When $`g4`$, the dimension of the operator $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i\phi (z)\right)`$ becomes zero and then negative. That means this field acquires an expectation value (which, in case of the negative dimension, scales with the system size towards bigger values). Once it acquires an expectation value, we can no longer argue that we could perform the shift in the path integral to arrive at this result in the first place. The path integral is no longer invariant under the shift of $`\phi `$.

We would have arrived at the same problem had we analyzed the conformal field theory approach of Ref. . There it was shown how to calculate the dimension of $`\psi (z)`$ with the help of U$`(1|1)`$ Kac-Moody algebra hidden in the supersymmetric approach to (1). In the very same way, its dimension becomes negative at large disorder and it acquires an expectation value. However, the expectation value for that operator would break the very Kac-Moody symmetry which the approach of  utilized so successfully.

A way out of this quagmire would be to add the symmetry breaking energy term of (1) to the path integral, $`ϵ\overline{\psi }\psi ϵ\mathrm{cos}\left(\phi \right)`$ and try to take $`ϵ`$ to zero. However, adding this term to the path integral (8) would make it completely intractable.

Instead, we should try a different approach. Let us first average (8) with the help of the probability distribution (4), in other words do the $`\varphi `$ integral in

$$𝒟\varphi 𝒟\phi \mathrm{exp}\left[d^2x\left\{\left(_\mu \phi +\frac{i}{2}_\mu \varphi \right)^2+\frac{1}{g}\left(_\mu \varphi \right)^2\right\}\right].$$
(9)   
It is not hard to do that if $`g<4`$ by completing the square. That gives back the dimension $`1/2g/8`$ to the operator $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i\phi (z)\right)`$.

However, if $`g>4`$, the integral over $`\varphi `$ in (9) becomes divergent. A different technique is needed to compute it in the strong disorder regime.

As always when dealing with divergent integrals, it is a good idea to regularize them. We are going to limit the $`\varphi `$ integration by a certain cutoff in the functional space.

In fact, it is easiest to do that in the ordinary integral equivalent to (9). Consider the following ordinary integral

$$_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dxdy}{\pi }\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(x+\frac{iy}{2}\right)^2\frac{1}{g}y^2\right].$$
(10)   
It is just an ordinary integral, and yet it captures the essential properties of (9). Let us try to compute $`x^2`$ with the help of this integral. By that we mean inserting $`x^2`$ inside the integral in (10) and then doing the integral. If we try to do the integral over $`x`$ first, and then integrate over $`y`$, we arrive at $`x^2=1/2g/8`$. However, if we reverse the order, the integral over $`y`$ becomes divergent if $`g>4`$, just like in (9). So we limit the integral over $`y`$ by the cutoff $`L`$ and $`L`$. It is not hard to estimate this integral at large $`L`$,

$`{\displaystyle _L^L}𝑑y\mathrm{exp}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g}}\right)y^2iyx\right]`$ (11)   
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\left(1\frac{4}{g}\right)L}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g}}\right)L^2\right]\mathrm{cos}\left(xL\right).`$ (12)   
We can now use that estimate to compute $`x^2`$ as in

$$𝑑xx^2\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(x\pm \frac{iL}{2}\right)^2\frac{L^2}{g}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{L^2}{g}\right).$$
(13)   
It is safe to extend the integration over $`x`$ to from $`\mathrm{}`$ to $`+\mathrm{}`$ since it converges very fast. Now it is obvious that taking the limit $`L\mathrm{}`$ we obtain $`x^2=0`$ for $`g>4`$ with the term $`\mathrm{exp}\left(L^2/g\right)`$ suppressing all others.

Let us pause now and translate this result to the language of (9). It implies that doing the integration over $`\varphi `$ first, with a suitable cutoff, we obtain that the dimension of the field $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i\phi \right)`$ is equal to $`0`$ for all $`g>4`$.

Thus we arrive at the result announced in the beginning. The dimension of the field $`\psi `$ of (1) is $`1/2g/8`$ if the disorder strength $`g`$ is less than $`4`$, and is equal to $`0`$ for $`g4`$. The field $`\overline{\psi }\psi \mathrm{cos}\left(\phi \right)`$, which is the density of states of the fermions, acquires an expectation value at $`g4`$.

Figuratively speaking, integrating over disorder $`\varphi `$ suppresses the quantum fluctuations of $`\phi `$ when we are in the strong disorder phase. That is why $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i\phi \right)`$ becomes zero dimensional. We obtained this result using a clever ‘brute force’ averaging of the correlation functions of (1). However, we should expect to see the same phenomenon in the supersymmetry or replica technique.

In principle we can now use the procedure outlined above to compute any correlation function of the theory in the strong disorder phase. Therefore for all practical purposes we now understand the nature of this phase transition. Let us repeat that to see it, we had to impose cutoff on the integration over disorder in the functional space. The nonanalytic behavior, typical of phase transitions, has been recovered as we took that cutoff to infinity. Later we will see that in this respect the transition we have been studying has a lot in common with a more established dilute to dense polymer transition.

Now we need to understand what this phase transition implies for the effective field theory of the disordered Dirac fermions. Effective field theory can be derived in either replica or supersymmetry approach, and we are going to concentrate on the latter. Supersymmetrization of (1) can be achieved by adding Dirac bosons to it, as in

$$H=d^2x\overline{\psi }\left(i_\mu A_\mu \right)\sigma _\mu \psi +b\left(i_\mu A_\mu \right)\sigma _\mu c,$$
(14)   
where $`b`$ and $`c`$ are commuting spinors. In calling them $`b`$ and $`c`$ we follow the accepted convention of .

At this stage we can directly average over $`A_\mu `$ with the help of (2) and obtain the effective supersymmetric field theory.

However, to avoid dealing with a complicated interacting field theory, it is convenient to bosonize the fields $`\psi `$, $`\overline{\psi }`$, and $`b`$, $`c`$ before the averaging. That is achieved with the help of two bosonic fields, $`\phi _1`$ and $`\phi _2`$, and two fermionic fields $`\theta `$, $`\overline{\theta }`$ as in follows 

$$e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^2x\left(\left(_\mu \phi _1\right)^2+\left(_\mu \phi _2\right)^2+ϵ_{\mu \nu }A_\mu \left(i_\nu \phi _1+_\nu \phi _2\right)_\mu \theta _\mu \overline{\theta }\right)}}$$
(15)   
We recall that the field $`\phi _1`$ bosonizes the fermions $`\psi `$ and $`\overline{\psi }`$ while the fields $`\phi _2`$, $`\theta `$ and $`\overline{\theta }`$ are needed to bosonize the $`b`$, $`c`$ fields.

Averaging over $`A_\mu `$ with the help of (2) we obtain (dropping the $`\theta `$ and $`\overline{\theta }`$ terms for the time being)

$$𝒟\phi _1𝒟\phi _2e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^2x\left(\left(_\mu \phi _1\right)^2+\left(_\mu \phi _2\right)^2{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{g}{4}}\left(i\phi _1+\phi _2\right)^2\right)}}$$
(16)   
It is not hard to see that this path integral and the one of (9) are the equivalent, as far as the averages involving the field $`\phi _1`$ or the field $`\phi `$ of (9) are concerned. Just as in (9), the integral over $`\phi _2`$ in (16) is divergent if $`g>4`$. Cutting this integral off and then taking the cutoff to infinity, one gets the same phase transition as we discussed before. Effectively, the integration over $`\phi _2`$ at strong disorder freezes out the fluctuations of the field $`\phi _1`$. We recall that $`\phi _2`$ was the result of bosonization of the auxiliary fields $`b`$, $`c`$. The only remaining fluctuating fields are $`\theta `$ and $`\overline{\theta }`$ of (15).

It now becomes obvious what this phase transition implies for supersymmetry. Of course, after the transition the invariance under the supergroup U$`(1|1)`$, manifest in (14), is no longer there. In fact, a good way of thinking about this phase transition is to recall that according to , the action (14), after averaging over $`A_\mu `$, has a Kac-Moody U$`(1|1)`$ symmetry. It is generated by the currents $`J`$, $`j`$, $`\eta `$, and $`\overline{\eta }`$ with the energy momentum tensor quadratic in these currents, $`T(Jj+\eta \overline{\eta }\overline{\eta }\eta )+(4g)JJ`$. After the phase transition the currents $`J`$ and $`j`$, being just linear combinations of the fields $`\phi _1`$ and $`\phi _2`$, annihilate any physical state. The energy momentum tensor becomes $`T=\eta \overline{\eta }`$ and the central charge is now $`c=2`$. The fields $`\eta `$ and $`\overline{\eta }`$ are nothing else, but the derivatives of the fields $`\theta `$ and $`\overline{\theta }`$ introduced in (15). Therefore, the symmetry U$`(1|1)`$ changes to the symmetry PSU$`(1|1)`$ of the $`c=2`$ theory. It is tempting to add that if we worked with both the advanced and retarded sectors, the U$`(2|2)`$ symmetry would change into PSU$`(2|2)`$, in the spirit of the recent proposal of .

We are going to change the subject slightly and discuss the connection of this phase transition with the physics of two dimensional polymers. The polymer problem is usually defined as self avoiding random walks, with the Green’s function given by

$$G(x,x^{};\mu )=\mu ^L,$$
(17)   
where the sum goes over all the nonselfintersecting trajectories connecting the points $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$, $`L`$ is their length, and $`\mu `$ is a parameter usually called frugacity (for a review, see Ref. ). When $`\mu `$ is small, the polymer Green’s function (17) is short ranged. As we increase $`\mu `$, the Green’s function becomes critical, and the theory approaches the dilute polymer critical point. If we increase $`\mu `$ even further, the sum in (17) becomes divergent. At this point, we may want to put the polymers inside a finite box, not allowing the trajectories in (17) to go outside that box. Then the sum in (17) becomes convergent in that new sense, and the theory enters the new phase, the so-called dense phase. In this phase, the polymers fill the entire space available to them, hence the name of the phase .

There is a deep analogy between the dilute to dense polymer phase transition and the disordered fermion phase transition we discussed in this letter. Indeed, in the path integral representation of (17) we sum over all the trajectories connecting the points $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$, penalizing those which intersect. The transition from a dilute to dense phase will manifest itself in the divergence of this path integral, and we have to cutoff the integral in the space of paths (restrict the paths to lie in a finite box) to see the dense phase, just like we did with the disordered fermions in this letter.

It is quite instructive to recall that the polymer problem can also be cast in the form of a motion in the presence of disorder. It is known to be equivalent to the problem of a quantum-mechanical particle moving in a purely imaginary random potential . Studied by the replicated path integral, it can then be mapped into the $`n0`$ limit of the O$`(n)`$ model, as was first noticed in  and later successfully utilized to find the critical properties of the dilute polymer phase.

Moreover, in a direct analogy with disordered Dirac fermions, before the phase transition the critical properties of the dilute polymers can be captured by a version of the U$`(1|1)`$ Kac-Moody algebra . After the transition, however, the dense polymer phase is described by the same $`c=2`$ theory  as the one proposed in this letter to describe the strong disorder phase of the Dirac fermions.

Returning to our main problem, the integer quantum Hall transitions, we think it is clear now what the further course of action should be. One should study Dirac fermions in the presence of random gauge potential and other types of disorder. The strong random gauge potential effectively freezes out two bosonic degrees of freedom, leaving us with a $`c=2`$ theory with a constant density of states. Whether that will result in tractable theory is an open question, however. It is also not at all obvious that this theory will flow towards a PSU$`(2|2)`$ sigma model with a Wess-Zumino term, as was proposed in . However, it will flow to a theory similar at least in spirit to that sigma model. What kind of theory it will flow to definitely deserves further study.

This work has been initiated as a result of inspiring discussions with Claudio de C. Chamon and Chetan Nayak. The author is also grateful to Matthew P.A. Fisher, T. Senthil, and Martin R. Zirnbauer for important comments. This work has been supported by the NSF grant PHY-94-07194.