A method to describe the metal-insulator transition (MIT) in disordered systems is presented. For this purpose the statistical properties of the eigenvalue spectrum of the Anderson Hamiltonian are considered. As the MIT corresponds to the transition between chaotic and nonchaotic behavior, it can be expected that the random matrix theory enables a qualitative description of the phase transition. We show that it is possible to determine the critical disorder in this way. In the thermodynamic limit the critical point behavior separates two different regimes: one for the metallic side and one for the insulating side.

• Received 25 May 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.48.16979