Anomalous transport in the Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper model in isolated and open systems

Abstract

We study the high temperature transport behavior of the Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper (AAH) model, both in the isolated thermodynamic limit and in the open system. At the critical point of the AAH model, we find hints of super-diffusive behavior from the scaling of spread of an initially localized wavepacket. On the other hand, when connected to two baths with different chemical potentials at the two ends, we find that the critical point shows clear sub-diffusive scaling of current with system size. We provide an explanation of this by showing that the current scaling with system-size is entirely governed by the behavior of the single particle eigenfunctions at the boundary sites where baths are attached. We also look at the particle density profile in non-equilibrium steady state of the open system when the two baths are at different chemical potentials. We find that the particle density profile has distinctly different behavior in the delocalized, critical and localized phases of the AAH model.