Two-body mobility edge in the Anderson-Hubbard model in three dimensions: Molecular versus scattering states

Abstract

Most of our quantitative understanding of disorder-induced metal-insulator transitions comes from numerical studies of simple noninteracting tight-binding models, like the Anderson model in three dimensions. An important outstanding problem is the fate of the Anderson transition in the presence of additional Hubbard interactions of strength $U$ between particles. Based on large-scale numerics, we compute the position of the mobility edge for a system of two identical bosons or two fermions with opposite spin components. The resulting phase diagram in the interaction-energy-disorder space possesses a remarkably rich and counterintuitive structure, with multiple metallic and insulating phases. We show that this phenomenon originates from the molecular or scattering-like nature of the pair states available at given energy $E$ and disorder strength $W$. The disorder-averaged density of states of the effective model for the pair is also investigated. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for ongoing research on many-body localization.