Critical Dynamics of the Anderson Transition on Small-World Graphs
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 177101 – Published 29 April, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/tyrf-2yf7
Abstract
The Anderson transition on random graphs is a paradigm for understanding high-dimensional quantum phase transitions driven by disorder and closely mirrors several features of many-body localization. In this Letter, we introduce a unitary Anderson model on small-world graphs, enabling large-scale, long-time simulations of wave-packet dynamics. This allows us to uncover logarithmically slow critical dynamics, two distinct localization times, and a crossover to ergodic diffusion. Finite-time scaling reveals distinct critical exponents, establishing a dynamical universality class for this exotic transition. Our model opens the way to an experimental realization of the Anderson transition on random graphs in quantum simulators. By combining disorder, high dimensionality, and dynamics, our approach provides a general framework for probing universal features of out-of-equilibrium quantum phase transitions, including those relevant to many-body localization.
