Numerical analysis of the magnetic-field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition in two dimensions

Ground state of the two-dimensional hard-core-boson model subjected to external magnetic field and quenched random chemical potential is studied numerically. In experiments, magnetic-field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition has already come under through investigation, whereas in computer simulation, only randomness-driven localization (with zero magnetic field) has been studied so far: The external magnetic field brings about a difficulty that the hopping amplitude becomes complex number (through the gauge twist), for which the quantum Monte-Carlo simulation fails. Here, we employ the exact diagonalization method, with which we demonstrate that the model does exhibit field-tuned localization transition at a certain critical magnetic field. At the critical point, we found that the DC conductivity is not universal, but is substantially larger than that of the randomness-driven localization transition at zero magnetic field. Our result supports recent experiment by Markovic et al. reporting an increase of the critical conductivity with magnetic field strengthened. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.