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  • Open Access

Information lattice approach to the metal-insulator transition

William Skoglund1, Elton Giacomelli1, Yiqi Yang1, Jens H. Bardarson2, and Erik van Loon1,*

  • *Contact author: erik.van_loon@teorfys.lu.se
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023102 – Published 30 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/2gvx-gp9g

Abstract

Correlation functions and correlation lengths are frequently used to describe phase transitions in quantum systems, but they require an explicit choice of observables. The recently introduced information lattice instead provides an observable-independent way to identify where and at which scale information is contained in quantum lattice models. Here, we use it to study the difference between the metallic and insulating regimes of one-dimensional noninteracting tight-binding chains. We find that the information per scale follows a power law in metals at low temperature and that Friedel-like oscillations are visible in the information lattice. At high temperature or in insulators at low temperature, the information per scale decays exponentially. Thus, the information lattice is a useful tool for analyzing the metal-insulator transition.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023102– Published 30 April, 2026
  • Received 16 February 2026
  • Accepted 14 April 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by Bibsam.

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