Flatbands in tight-binding lattices with anisotropic potentials

Abstract

We consider tight-binding models on Bravais lattices with anisotropic onsite potentials that vary along a given direction and are constant along the transverse one. Inspired by our previous work on flatbands in anti-$\mathcal{PT}$ symmetric Hamiltonians [Phys. Rev. A 105, L021305 (2022)], we construct an anti-$\mathcal{PT}$ symmetric Hamiltonians with an $E=0$ flatband by tuning the hoppings and the shapes of potentials. This construction is illustrated for the square lattice with bounded and unbounded potentials. Unlike flatbands in short-ranged translationally invariant Hamiltonians, we conjecture that the considered $E=0$ flatbands do not host compact localized states. Instead the flatband eigenstates exhibit a localization transition along the potential direction upon increasing the potential strength for bounded potentials. For unbounded potentials flatband eigenstates are always localized irrespective of the potential strength.