Joshua Bodyfelt

Flat-band engineering of mobility edges

Properly modulated flatband lattices have a divergent density of states at the flatband energy. Quasiperiodic modulations are known to host a metal insulator transition already in one space dimension. Their embedding into flatband geometries consequently allows for a precise engineering and fine tuning of mobility edges. We obtain analytic expressions for singular mobility edges for two flatband lattice examples. In particular, we engineer cases with arbitrarily small energy separations of mobility edge, zeroes, and divergencies.

Probing Localization in Absorbing Systems via Loschmidt Echos

We measure Anderson localization in quasi-one-dimensional waveguides in the presence of absorption by analyzing the echo dynamics due to small perturbations. We specifically show that the inverse participation number of localized modes dictates the decay of the Loschmidt echo, differing from the Gaussian decay expected for diffusive or chaotic systems. Our theory, based on a random matrix modeling, agrees perfectly with scattering echo measurements on a quasi-one-dimensional microwave cavity filled with randomly distributed scatterers.

Scaling theory of heat transport in quasi-one-dimensional disordered harmonic chains

We introduce a variant of the banded random matrix ensemble and show, using detailed numerical analysis and theoretical arguments, that the phonon heat current in disordered quasi-one-dimensional lattices obeys a one-parameter scaling law. The resulting β function indicates that an anomalous Fourier law is applicable in the diffusive regime, while in the localization regime the heat current decays exponentially with the sample size. Our approach opens a new way to investigate the effects of Anderson localization in heat conduction based on the powerful ideas of scaling theory.

Quasiperiodic driving of Anderson localized waves in one dimension.

We consider a quantum particle in a one-dimensional disordered lattice with Anderson localization in the presence of multifrequency perturbations of the onsite energies. Using the Floquet representation, we transform the eigenvalue problem into a Wannier-Stark basis. Each frequency component contributes either to a single channel or a multichannel connectivity along the lattice, depending on the control parameters. The single-channel regime is essentially equivalent to the undriven case. The multichannel driving increases substantially the localization length for slow driving, showing two different scaling regimes of weak and strong driving, yet the localization length stays finite for a finite number of frequency components.

Scaling properties of delay times in one-dimensional random media

The scaling properties of the inverse moments of Wigner delay times are investigated in finite one-dimensional (1D) random media with one channel attached to the boundary of the sample. We find that they follow a simple scaling law which is independent of the microscopic details of the random potential. Our theoretical considerations are confirmed numerically for systems as diverse as 1D disordered wires and optical lattices to microwave waveguides with correlated scatterers.

Taming the flow of light via Parity-Time Symmetry

We introduce the notion of Parity-Time Symmetry (PTS) and present its implications in wave transport. Using photonics and electronics frameworks we propose designs that support asymmetric transport due to the interplay of PTS and nonlinearity.