Topologically localized insulators

Abstract

We show that fully-localized, three-dimensional, time-reversal-symmetry-broken insulators do not belong to a single phase of matter but can realize topologically distinct phases that are labelled by integers. The phase transition occurs only when the system becomes conducting at some filling. We find that these novel topological phases are fundamentally distinct from insulators without disorder: they are guaranteed to host delocalized boundary states giving rise to the quantized boundary Hall conductance, whose value is equal to the bulk topological invariant.