Fragile extended phases in the log-normal Rosenzweig-Porter model

Abstract

In this paper we suggest an extension of the Rosenzweig-Porter (RP) model, the LN-RP model, in which the off-diagonal matrix elements have a wide, log-normal distribution. We argue that this model is more suitable to describe a generic many body localization problem. In contrast to RP model, in LN-RP model a new, weakly ergodic phase appears that is characterized by the broken basis-rotation symmetry which the fully-ergodic phase respects. Therefore, in addition to the localization and ergodic transitions in LN-RP model there exists also the transition between the two ergodic phases (FWE transition). We suggest new criteria of stability of the non-ergodic phases which give the points of localization and ergodic transitions and prove that the Anderson localization transition in LN-RP model is discontinuous, in contrast to that in a conventional RP model. We also formulate the criterion of FWE transition and obtain the full phase diagram of the model. We show that truncation of the log-normal tail shrinks the region of weakly-ergodic phase and restores the multifractal and the fully-ergodic phases.