On-Site Interaction Effects on Localization : Dominance of Non-Universal Contributions

Abstract

The influence of on-site (Hubbard) electron-electron interaction on disorder-induced localization is studied in order to clarify the role of electronic spin. The motivation is based on the recent experimental indications of a "metal-insulator" transition in two dimensional systems. We use both analytical and numerical techniques, addressing the limit of weak short-range interaction. The analytical calculation is based on Random Matrix Theory (RMT). It is found that although RMT gives a qualitative explanation of the numerical results, it is quantitatively incorrect. This is due to an exact cancellation of short range and long range correlations in RMT, which does not occur in the non-universal corrections to RMT. An estimate for these contributions is given.