Glassy states in fermionic systems with strong disorder and interactions

We study the competition between interactions and disorder in two dimensions. Whereas a noninteracting system is always Anderson localized by disorder in two dimensions, a pure system can develop a Mott gap for sufficiently strong interactions. Within a simple model, with short-ranged repulsive interactions, we show that, even in the limit of strong interaction, the Mott gap is completely washed out by disorder for an infinite system for dimensions D≤₂, leading to a glassy state. Moreover, the Mott insulator cannot maintain a broken symmetry in the presence of disorder. We then show that the probability of a nonzero gap as a function of system size falls onto a universal curve, reflecting the glassy dynamics. An analytic calculation is also presented in one dimension that provides further insight into the nature of slow dynamics.