Engineering exact mobility edges in quasiperiodic Aharonov-Bohm chains

Abstract

We investigate localization phenomena and exact mobility edges in a quasiperiodic Aharonov-Bohm chain, where the 1D canonical diagonal and off-diagonal Aubry-André-Harper models are laterally coupled to an auxiliary sublattice threaded by a synthetic magnetic flux. By analytically computing the Lyapunov exponent via Avila's global theory of one-frequency Schrödinger operators, we derive exact expressions for mobility edges. In the diagonal limit, the coupling to the auxiliary sublattice generates hyperbolic mobility edges that exhibit a sign-changing divergence and can be continuously tuned by the magnetic flux. In the off-diagonal regime, the interference between quasiperiodic hopping and indirect tunneling through the auxiliary sublattice gives rise to exact anomalous mobility edges that separate critical and extended states. Critical states and anomalous mobility edges emerge even in the absence of incommensurately distributed zeros in the hopping modulation, a behavior distinct from that of conventional off-diagonal models. Our results establish a rigorous theoretical framework for engineering controllable mobility edges, with the synthetic flux providing a tunable experimental knob that paves the way for realizations in platforms such as superconducting quantum circuits and photonic waveguides.