Quantum mechanical relaxation of open quasiperiodic systems

Abstract

We study the time evolution of the survival probability $P(t)$ in open one-dimensional quasiperiodic tight-binding samples of size $L$, at critical conditions. We show that it decays algebraically as $P(t)\sim t^{-\alpha}$ up to times $t^*\sim L^{\gamma}$, where $\alpha = 1-D_0^E$, $\gamma=1/D_0^E$ and $D_0^E$ is the fractal dimension of the spectrum of the closed system. We verified these results for the Harper model at the metal-insulator transition and for Fibonacci lattices. Our predictions should be observable in propagation experiments with electrons or classical waves in quasiperiodic superlattices or dielectric multilayers.