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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Reentrant localization induced by short-range hopping in the fractal Rosenzweig-Porter model

Roopayan Ghosh1,*, Madhumita Sarkar1,2, and Ivan M. Khaymovich3,4

  • *Contact author: ucaprgh@ucl.ac.uk

Phys. Rev. B 111, L220102 – Published 27 June, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/k957-fcmh

Abstract

Typically, metallic systems localized under strong disorder exhibit a transition to delocalization as the kinetic terms increase. In this Letter, we reveal the opposite effect—increasing kinetic terms leads to an unexpected reduction of mobility, enhancing localization of the system, and even leading to reentrant delocalization transitions. Specifically, we add a nearest-neighbor hopping with amplitude κ to the Rosenzweig-Porter (RP) model with fractal on-site disorder and surprisingly see that, as κ grows, the system initially tends to localization from the fractal phase, but then reenters the ergodic phase. We build an analytical framework to explain this re-entrant behavior, supported by exact diagonalization results. The interplay between the spatially local κ term, insensitive to fractal disorder, and the energy-local RP coupling, sensitive to fine-level spacing structures, drives the observed reentrant behavior. This mechanism offers a distinct pathway to reentrant localization phenomena in many-body quantum systems.

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References (40)

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