Ray-Stretching Statistics and Hot-Spot Formation in Weak Random Disorder.

Weak scattering in a random disordered medium and the associated extreme-event statistics are of great interest in various physical contexts. Here, in the context of non-relativistic particle motion through a weakly correlated random potential, we show how extreme events in particle densities are strongly related to the stretching exponents, where the 'hot spots' in the intensity profile correspond to minima in the stretching exponents. This strong connection is expected to be valid for different random potential distributions, as long as the disorder is correlated and weak, and is also expected to apply to other physical contexts, such as deep ocean waves.

Opening-assisted coherent transport in the semiclassical regime.

We study quantum enhancement of transport in open systems in the presence of disorder and dephasing. Quantum coherence effects may significantly enhance transport in open systems even in the semiclassical regime (where the decoherence rate is greater than the intersite hopping amplitude), as long as the disorder is sufficiently strong. When the strengths of disorder and dephasing are fixed, there is an optimal opening strength at which the coherent transport enhancement is optimized. Analytic results are obtained in two simple paradigmatic tight-binding models of large systems: the linear chain and the fully connected network. The physical behavior is also reflected in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) photosynthetic complex, which may be viewed as intermediate between these paradigmatic models.

Optimal dephasing for ballistic energy transfer in disordered linear chains.

We study the interplay between dephasing, disorder, and coupling to a sink on transport efficiency in a one-dimensional chain of finite length N, and in particular the beneficial or detrimental effect of dephasing on transport. The excitation moves along the chain by coherent nearest-neighbor hopping Ω, under the action of static disorder W and dephasing γ. The last site is coupled to an external acceptor system (sink), where the excitation can be trapped with a rate Γ_{trap}. While it is known that dephasing can help transport in the localized regime, here we show that dephasing can enhance energy transfer even in the ballistic regime. Specifically, in the localized regime we recover previous results, where the optimal dephasing is independent of the chain length and proportional to W or W^{2}/Ω. In the ballistic regime, the optimal dephasing decreases as 1/N or 1/sqrt[N], respectively, for weak and moderate static disorder. When focusing on the excitation starting at the beginning of the chain, dephasing can help excitation transfer only above a critical value of disorder W^{cr}, which strongly depends on the sink coupling strength Γ_{trap}. Analytic solutions are obtained for short chains.

Strong quantum scarring by local impurities.

We discover and characterise strong quantum scars, or quantum eigenstates resembling classical periodic orbits, in two-dimensional quantum wells perturbed by local impurities. These scars are not explained by ordinary scar theory, which would require the existence of short, moderately unstable periodic orbits in the perturbed system. Instead, they are supported by classical resonances in the unperturbed system and the resulting quantum near-degeneracy. Even in the case of a large number of randomly scattered impurities, the scars prefer distinct orientations that extremise the overlap with the impurities. We demonstrate that these preferred orientations can be used for highly efficient transport of quantum wave packets across the perturbed potential landscape. Assisted by the scars, wave-packet recurrences are significantly stronger than in the unperturbed system. Together with the controllability of the preferred orientations, this property may be very useful for quantum transport applications.

Integrating random matrix theory predictions with short-time dynamical effects in chaotic systems.

We discuss a modification to random matrix theory eigenstate statistics that systematically takes into account the nonuniversal short-time behavior of chaotic systems. The method avoids diagonalization of the Hamiltonian; instead it requires only knowledge of short-time dynamics for a chaotic system or ensemble of similar systems. Standard random matrix theory and semiclassical predictions are recovered in the limits of zero Ehrenfest time and infinite Heisenberg time, respectively. As examples, we discuss wave-function autocorrelations and cross correlations, and show that significant improvement in accuracy is obtained for simple chaotic systems where comparison can be made with brute-force diagonalization. The accuracy of the method persists even when the short-time dynamics of the system or ensemble is known only in a classical approximation. Further improvement in the rate of convergence is obtained when the method is combined with the correlation function bootstrapping approach introduced previously.

Method to modify random matrix theory using short-time behavior in chaotic systems.

We discuss a modification to random matrix theory (RMT) eigenstate statistics that systematically takes into account the nonuniversal short-time behavior of chaotic systems. The method avoids diagonalization of the Hamiltonian, instead requiring only knowledge of short-time dynamics for a chaotic system or ensemble of similar systems. Standard RMT and semiclassical predictions are recovered in the limits of zero Ehrenfest time and infinite Heisenberg time, respectively. As examples, we discuss wave-function autocorrelations and cross correlations and show how the approach leads to a significant improvement in the accuracy for simple chaotic systems where comparison can be made with brute-force diagonalization.

Inflationary dynamics for matrix eigenvalue problems.

Many fields of science and engineering require finding eigenvalues and eigenvectors of large matrices. The solutions can represent oscillatory modes of a bridge, a violin, the disposition of electrons around an atom or molecule, the acoustic modes of a concert hall, or hundreds of other physical quantities. Often only the few eigenpairs with the lowest or highest frequency (extremal solutions) are needed. Methods that have been developed over the past 60 years to solve such problems include the Lanczos algorithm, Jacobi-Davidson techniques, and the conjugate gradient method. Here, we present a way to solve the extremal eigenvalue/eigenvector problem, turning it into a nonlinear classical mechanical system with a modified Lagrangian constraint. The constraint induces exponential inflationary growth of the desired extremal solutions.

Statistics of branched flow in a weak correlated random potential.

Recent images of electron flow through a two-dimensional electron gas device show branching behavior that is reproduced in numerical simulations of motion in a correlated random potential [M. A. Topinka, Nature 410, 183 (2001)]]. We show how such branching arises from caustics in the classical flow and find a simple scaling behavior of the branching under variation of the random potential strength. Analytic results describing statistical properties of the branching are confirmed by classical and quantum numerical tests.