Localization and spectrum of quasiparticles in a disordered fermionic Dicke model

Abstract: We study a fermionic two-band model with the interband transition resonantly coupled to a cavity. This model was recently proposed to explain cavity-enhanced charge transport, but a thorough characterization of the closed system, in particular localization of various excitations, is lacking. In this work, using exact diagonalization, we characterize the system by its spectrum under various filling factors and variable disorder. As in the Dicke model, the effective light-matter coupling scales with the square root of the system size. However, there is an additional factor that decreases with increasing doping density. The transition from the weak-coupling regime to the strong-coupling regime occurs when the effective light-matter coupling is larger than the electronic bandwidth. Here, the formation of exciton-polaritons is accompanied by the formation of bound excitons. Photon spectral functions exhibit significant weights on the in-gap states between the polaritons, even without disorder. Finally, while the localization of electron-hole excitations in a disordered system is lifted by strong coupling, the same is not true for free charges, which remain localized at strong and even ultrastrong coupling. Based on this finding, we discuss scenarios for charge transport.