Griffiths effects and quantum critical points in dirty superconductors without spin-rotation invariance: One-dimensional examples

Abstract

We introduce a strong-disorder renormalization group (RG) approach suitable for investigating the quasiparticle excitations of disordered superconductors in which the quasiparticle spin is not conserved. We analyze one-dimensional models with this RG and with elementary transfer matrix methods. We find that such models with broken spin rotation invariance generically lie in one of two topologically distinct localized phases. Close enough to the critical point separating the two phases, the system has a power-law divergent low-energy density of states (with a nonuniversal continuously varying power law) in either phase, due to quantum Griffiths singularities. This critical point belongs to the same infinite-disorder universality class as the one-dimensional particle-hole symmetric Anderson localization problem, while the Griffiths phases in the vicinity of the transition are controlled by lines of strong (but not infinite) disorder fixed points terminating in the critical point.