Delocalization transition for light in two dimensions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lucas, Sébastien, Miniatura, Christian, Skipetrov, Sergey E.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Lucas, Sébastien
Miniatura, Christian
Skipetrov, Sergey E.
author_facet Lucas, Sébastien
Miniatura, Christian
Skipetrov, Sergey E.
contents Common belief, confirmed by existing experiments, is that arbitrarily weak disorder should lead to spatial localization of eigenmodes of scalar wave equations when wave propagation is two-dimensional (2D). We predict that contrary to this belief, a localization-delocalization transition can take place for light scattered by two-level atoms placed at random positions in the middle plane of a parallel-plate 2D waveguide fed by its fundamental transverse-magnetic (TM) mode (electric field polarized perpendicular to the waveguide and atomic planes). This transition, driven by near-field dipole-dipole interactions between atoms, occurs upon increasing the areal number density of atoms beyond some critical value. A finite-size scaling analysis of the transition yields an estimate of its critical exponent $ν$ = 1.4 $\pm$ 0.2.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_22919
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Delocalization transition for light in two dimensions
Lucas, Sébastien
Miniatura, Christian
Skipetrov, Sergey E.
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Optics
Common belief, confirmed by existing experiments, is that arbitrarily weak disorder should lead to spatial localization of eigenmodes of scalar wave equations when wave propagation is two-dimensional (2D). We predict that contrary to this belief, a localization-delocalization transition can take place for light scattered by two-level atoms placed at random positions in the middle plane of a parallel-plate 2D waveguide fed by its fundamental transverse-magnetic (TM) mode (electric field polarized perpendicular to the waveguide and atomic planes). This transition, driven by near-field dipole-dipole interactions between atoms, occurs upon increasing the areal number density of atoms beyond some critical value. A finite-size scaling analysis of the transition yields an estimate of its critical exponent $ν$ = 1.4 $\pm$ 0.2.
title Delocalization transition for light in two dimensions
topic Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.22919