Anomalous dynamical scaling and bifractality in the 1D Anderson model

Abstract

We investigate dynamical scaling properties of the 1D tight-binding Anderson model with a weak diagonal disorder, by means of the spreading of a wave packet. In the absence of disorder, and more generally in the ballistic regime, the wavefunction exhibits sharp fronts. These ballistic fronts yield an anomalous time dependence of the $q$-th moment of the local probability density, or dynamical participation number of order $q$, with a non-trivial exponent $τ(q)$ for $q>2$. This striking feature is interpreted as bifractality. A heuristic treatment of the localised regime demonstrates a similar anomalous scaling, but with the correlation length $ξ_0$ near the band center replacing time. The moments of the position of the particle are not affected by the fronts, and they exhibit normal scaling. The crossover behaviour of all these quantities between the ballistic and the localised regime is described by scaling functions of one single variable, $x=t/ξ_0$. These predictions are confirmed by accurate numerical data, both in the normal and in the anomalous case.