Absence of a metallic phase in random-bond Ising models in two dimensions: applications to disordered superconductors and paired quantum Hall states

Abstract

When the two-dimensional random-bond Ising model is represented as a noninteracting fermion problem, it has the same symmetries as an ensemble of random matrices known as class D. A nonlinear sigma model analysis of the latter in two dimensions has previously led to the prediction of a metallic phase, in which the fermion eigenstates at zero energy are extended. In this paper we argue that such behavior cannot occur in the random-bond Ising model, by showing that the Ising spin correlations in the metallic phase violate the bound on such correlations that results from the reality of the Ising couplings. Some types of disorder in spinless or spin-polarized p-wave superconductors and paired fractional quantum Hall states allow a mapping onto an Ising model with real but correlated bonds, and hence a metallic phase is not possible there either. It is further argued that vortex disorder, which is generic in the fractional quantum Hall applications, destroys the ordered or weak-pairing phase, in which nonabelian statistics is obtained in the pure case.