Thermal metal in network models of a disordered two-dimensional superconductor

Abstract

We study the symmetry class for localization which arises from models of noninteracting quasiparticles in disordered superconductors that have neither time-reversal nor spin-rotation invariance. Two-dimensional systems in this category, which is known as class D, can display phases with three different types of quasiparticle dynamics: metallic, localized, or with a quantized (thermal) Hall conductance. Correspondingly, they can show a variety of delocalization transitions. We illustrate this behavior by investigating numerically the phase diagrams of network models with the appropriate symmetry and show the appearance of the metallic phase.