Probing the metallic energy spectrum beyond the Thouless energy scale using the singular value decomposition

Abstract

Disordered quantum systems feature an energy scale know as the Thouless energy. For energy ranges below this scale, the properties of the energy spectrum can be described by random matrix theory. Above this scale a different behavior sets in. For a metallic system it has been long ago shown by Altshuler and Shklovskii that the number variance should increase as a power law with a power dependent only on the dimensionality of the system. Although tantalizing hints for this behavior have been seen in previous numerical studies, it is quite difficult to verify this prediction using the standard local unfolding methods. Here we use a different unfolding method, i.e., the singular value decomposition, and establish a connection between the power law behavior of the scree plot (the singular values ranked by their amplitude) and the power law behavior of the number variance. Thus we are able to numerically verify the Altshuler and Shklovskii's prediction for disordered $3D$, $4D$, and $5D$ single-electron Anderson models on square lattices in the metallic regime. The same method could be applied to systems such as the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model and various interacting many body models for which the many body localization occurs. It has been recently reported that such systems exhibit a Thouless energy and analyzing the spectrum's behavior on larger scales is of much current interest.