Physics:Thouless energy
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The Thouless energy is a characteristic energy scale of diffusive disordered conductors. It was first introduced by the Scottish-American physicist David J. Thouless when studying Anderson localization,[1] as a measure of the sensitivity of energy levels to a change in the boundary conditions of the system. Though being a classical quantity, it has been shown to play an important role in the quantum-mechanical treatment of disordered systems.[2]
It is defined by
- [math]\displaystyle{ E_{\rm T} = \frac{\hbar D}{L^2} }[/math],
where D is the diffusion constant and L the size of the system, and thereby inversely proportional to the diffusion time
- [math]\displaystyle{ t_D = \frac{L^2}{D} }[/math]
through the system.
References
- ↑ J. T. Edwards and D. J. Thouless, "Numerical studies of localization in disordered systems," J. Phys. C: Solid State Phys. 5, 807 (1972), [1] doi:10.1088/0022-3719/5/8/007.
- ↑ A. Altland, Y. Gefen, and G. Montambaux, "What is the Thouless Energy for Ballistic Systems?", Physical Review Letters 76, 1130 (1996), [2] doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.1130.
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