Localization Lengths for Two-Dimensional Random Band Matrices: Stretched-Exponential Lower Bounds

Source abstract

We consider $N \times N$ random band matrices $H = (H_{xy})$ with centered complex Gaussian entries, indexed by points $x,y$ on the two-dimensional discrete torus $(\mathbb{Z} / \sqrt{N} \mathbb{Z})^2$. The matrix entries $H_{xy}$ vanish whenever the distance between $x$ and $y$ exceeds the bandwidth parameter $W$. We prove that if $W \geq (\log N)^{55}$, then, with high probability, all bulk eigenvectors are delocalized. Equivalently, this yields a lower bound of order $\exp(W^{1/55})$ for the localization lengths of two-dimensional random band matrices, improving the superpolynomial lower bound $W^C$ for every fixed constant $C>0$ established in arXiv:2503.07606.