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# BioSystems, Vol. 39:117–125, 1996 The Hypercube Structure of the Genetic Code Explains Conservative and Non–Conservative Aminoacid Substitutions in vivo and in vitro

## I Introduction

The genetic code is the biochemical system for gene expression. It deals with the translation, or decoding, of information contained in the primary structure of DNA and RNA molecules into protein sequences. Therefore the genetic code is both, a physico–chemical and a communication system. Physically, molecular recognition depends on the degree of complementarity between the interacting molecular surfaces (by means of weak interactions); informationally, a prerequisite to define a code is the concept of distinguishability. It is the physical indistinguishability of some codon–anticodon interaction energies that makes the codons synonymous, and the code degenerate and redundant .

In natural languages  as well as in the genetic code the total redundancy is due to a hierarchy of constraints acting one upon another. The specific way in which the code departs from randomness is, by definition, its structure. It is assumed that this structure is the result of the hierarchical order of the interaction energies of the bases in codon–anticodon recognition. The hypercube structure of the genetic code as currently introduced  will be described and its implications for molecular evolution and test–tube evolution experiments will be discussed. As we shall see the genetic code may be represented by a six–dimensional boolean hypercube in which the codons (actually the code–words; see below) occupy the vertices (nodes) in such a way that all kinshipThe term kinship means the relationship between members of the same family. neighborhoods are correctly represented. This approach is a particular application to binary sequences of length six of the general concept of sequence–space, first introduced in coding theory by Hamming .

A code–word is next to six nodes representing codons differing in a single property. Thus the hypercube simultaneously represents the whole set of codons and keeps track of which codons are one–bit neighbors of each other. Different hyperplanes correspond to the four stages of the evolution of the code according to the Co–evolution Theory . Transitions within three of the “columns” (four–dimensional cubes), consisting of the codon classes $`NGN`$, $`NAN`$, $`NCN`$, and $`NUN`$, lead to silent and conservative amino acid substitutions; while transitions in the same hyperplane (four–dimensional subspace belonging to any of the codon classes $`ANN`$, $`CNN`$, $`GNN`$ or $`UNN`$) lead to non–conservative substitutions as frequently found in proteins. The proposed structure demonstrates that in the genetic code there is a good balance between conservatism and innovation. To illustrate these results several examples of the non–conservative variable positions of homologous proteins are discussed. Two different behaviors were found:

* There are sites in which the different amino acids may be explained by one or two “attractor nodes” (coding for the dominating amino acid(s)) and their one–bit neighbors in the codon hypercube, and
* There are sites in which the amino acids correspond to codons located in closed paths in the hypercube.

Very recently the rapid evolution of a protein in vitro by DNA shuffling has been accomplished by Stemmer .

This experiment, called by Smith “Sexual PCR”, was further discussed in . Smith recalls that Stemmer investigated the $`beta`$–lactamase gene TEM–1 which has a very low activity against the antibiotic cefoxtamineThe minimum inhibitory concentration for Escherichia Coli bacteria carrying TEM–1–bearing plasmid is only $`20ngml^1`$. After three cycles of mutagenesis, recombination and selection he found the minimum inhibitory concentration to be $`16,000`$ times higher than that of the original clone.

It will be shown that, without exception, the amino–acid replacements in TEM–1 mutants selected for high resistance to cefotaxime may be accounted by one bit changes of the corresponding codons. This shows that the structure of the code permits a very significant change in function of the coded protein by means of one–bit changes of some of the codons, provided that these mutations are integrated in a single polynucleotide by recombination.

## II Codon–anticodon interaction

The four bases occurring in DNA (RNA) macromolecules define the corresponding alphabet $`X:\{A,C,G,T\}`$ or $`X:\{A,C,G,U\}`$. Each base is completely specified by two independent dichotomic categorizations (Fig. 1):

* according to its chemical type $`𝒞:\{R,Y\}`$, where $`R:(A,G)`$ are purines and $`Y:(C,U)`$ are pyrimidines and
* according to $`H`$–bonding, $`:\{W,S\}`$, where $`W:(A,U)`$ are weak and $`S:(C,G)`$ are strong bases.

The third possible partition into imino/keto bases is not independent from the former ones. Denoting by $`𝒞_i`$ the chemical type and by $`_i`$ the $`H`$–bond category of the base $`B_i`$ at position $`i`$ of a codon our basic assumption says that the codon–anticodon interaction energy obeys the following hierarchical order:

$`𝒞_2>_2>𝒞_1>_1>𝒞_3>_3.`$ (1)
This means, that the most important characteristic determining the codon–anticodon interaction is the chemical type of the base in the second position; the next most important characteristic is whether there is a weak or strong base in this position; then the chemical type of the first base and so on.

The above assumption goes beyond the early qualitative view that the optimization between stability and rate, that is always found for enzyme–substrate interactions, also applies to the codon–anticodon interaction . Besides, several authors have suggested that three bases are needed for effectively binding the adapter to the messenger. From this it maybe inferred that codon’s size determines a range of codon–anticodon overall interaction strength within which recognition can occur. Genetic translation rate is limited, among other things, by codon–anticodon recognition which, in turn, depends on base–pair lifetimes in a given structural situation. These life–times are influenced by the nature of the pairs: they are shorter for $`AT`$ than for $`GC`$ pairs .

The bases are represented by the nodes of a 2–cube (Fig. 1). The first attribute is the chemical character and the second one is the hydrogen–bond character. Extending this association to base triplets, each codon is associated in a unique way with a codeword consisting of six attribute values (see Table 1).

In some of the hypercube directions single feature codon changes (one–bit code–word changes) produce synonymous or conservative amino acid substitutions in the corresponding protein (when the transitions occur in three of the 4–cubes displayed as “columns” in Figs. 2 and 4); while in other directions lead to context dependent replacements which, in general, conserve only certain physical properties. However, if these properties are the only relevant ones in the given context, the substitution has little effect on the protein structure as well. These low–constraint sites facilitate evolution because they allow the transit between hypercube columns belonging to amino acids with very different physico–chemical properties (e.g. hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acids, respectively).

## III Gray code structure of the genetic code

An $`n`$–dimensional hypercube, denoted by $`Q_n`$, consists of $`2^n`$ nodes each addressed by a unique $`n`$–bit identification number. A link exists between two nodes of $`Q_n`$ if and only if their node addresses differ in exactly one bit position. A link is said to be along dimension $`i`$ if it connects two nodes which addresses differ to as the $`i`$th bit (where the least significant bit is referred to as the $`0`$th bit). $`Q_6`$ is illustrated in Fig. 4. Two nodes in a hypercube are said to be adjacent if there is a link between them. The (Hamming) distance between any two cube nodes is the number of bits differing in their addresses. The number of transitions needed to reach a node from another node equals the distance between the two nodes. A $`d`$–dimensional sub-cube in $`Q_n`$ involves $`2^d`$ nodes which addresses belong to a sequence of $`n`$ symbols $`\{0,1,\}`$ in which exactly $`d`$ of them are of the symbol $``$ (i.e. the don’t care symbol which value can be $`0`$ or $`1`$).

The idea to propose a Gray Code representation of the Genetic Code goes back to Swanson  where this concept is explained in detail (see also ). However, a great number of different Gray Codes can be associated to the Genetic Code depending on the order of importance of the bits in a code–word. In Table 1 our chosen Gray Code is displayed. It is constructed according to our main hypothesis

$`𝒞_2>_2>𝒞_1>_1>𝒞_3>_3.`$ (2)
For example, the first two lines of the table differ in the last bit corresponding to $`_3`$; which is the least significant bit; the second and the third lines differ in the next least significant bit, i.e. $`𝒞_3`$, and so forth.

## IV The structure of codon doublets

This section is more mathematical than the rest of the paper. It is not essential for the understanding of the rest of the paper.

In a pioneering paper Danckwerts and Neubert  discussed the symmetries of the sixteen $`B_1B_2`$ codon doublets in terms of the Klein–4 group of base transformations. Here their result will be recast in a form of a decision–tree (Fig. 5) and their analysis will be extended to the $`B_2B_3`$ doublets. They found the following structure for the set $`M`$ of $`B_1B_2`$ doublets:

Starting from $`Ac`$ generate the set:

$`M_0`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\left[(1,1)(\alpha ,1)(\alpha ,\beta )(\alpha ,\gamma )\right]AC\right\}`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`\{AC,CC,CG,CU\}`$ (4)
$`M_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left[(1,1)(\beta ,1)\right]M_0`$ (5)
$`M_2`$ $`=`$ $`(\alpha ,\alpha )M_1`$ (6)
The sets $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ consist of four–fold and less than four–fold degenerate doublets, respectively.

The set $`M`$ can be expressed as:

$`M`$ $`=`$ $`\left[(1,1)(b,1)\right]\left[(1,1)(\alpha ,\alpha )\right]M_0`$ (7)
Where the base exchange operators $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma `$ are defined in Fig. 1.

They showed that: “a) $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ are invariant by operating with $`(\beta ,1)`$ on $`B_1`$, but no operation on $`B_2`$ leaves $`M_1`$ or $`M_2`$ invariant. Thus $`B_2`$ carries more information than $`B_1`$ and $`B_2`$ is therefore more important for the stability of $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ than $`B_1`$$`A`$ change of $`B_1`$ with respect to its hydrogen bond property does not change the resulting amino acids if all doublets of either $`M_1`$ or $`M_2`$ are affected.

Reversing supposition and conclusion, $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ may be defined as those doublet sets of 8 elements which are invariant under the $`(\beta ,1)`$–transformation. Then experience shows that $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ are fourfold and less than fourfold degenerate respectively.”

Thus the third base degeneracy of a codon does not depend on the exact base $`B_1`$, but only on its $`H`$–bond property (weak or strong).

The above results can be simply visualized as a decision–tree (Fig. 5). It can be seen from this figure that the redundancy of a codon is determined only by the $`H`$–bond character of $`B_1`$ and $`B_2`$: $`SSN`$ codons (with 6 $`H`$–bonds in $`B_1B_2`$) belong to $`M_1`$ while $`WWN`$ codons (with 4 $`H`$–bonds in $`B_1B_2`$) belong to $`M_2`$. However, for codons $`WSN`$ and $`SWN`$ (with 5 $`H`$–bonds in $`B_1B_2`$) it is not possible to decide unless one has more information about the second base: $`WCN`$ and $`SUN`$ belong to $`M_1`$ while $`WGN`$ and $`SAN`$ belong to $`M_2`$. In all cases at most three attributes are necessary to determine the redundancy of a codon up to this point. Of course the non–degenerate codons ($`UAG`$ for Methionine and $`UGG`$ for Tryptophan) will require the specification of the six attributes.

From the decision rules obtained from Fig. 5 it is clear that there are branches where the refinement procedure cannot continue (the branches which end in $`M_1`$) because no matter which base occupies the third codon position the degeneracy cannot be lifted. This imposes a limit to the maximum number of amino acids which can be incorporated to the code without recurring to a “frozen accident” hypothesis. Our proposal generalizes the “2–out–of–3” hypothesis of Lagerkvist  which refers only to codons in the $`SSN`$ class.

The sixteen $`B_1B_2`$ doublets can be represented as the vertices of a four–dimensional hypercube. Figure 6 shows that the sets $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ are located in compact regions. Notice that this figure differs from the one introduced by Bertman and Jungck  who considered as basic transformations $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, instead of $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ as we did. Since the operator $`\alpha `$ changes two bits we do not consider it as basic.

Let’s consider now the structure of the set $`M^{}`$ of $`B_2B_3`$ doublets: Exactly as before, define the sets

$`M_0^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{NC\right\}`$ (8)
$`M_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[(1,1)(1,\beta )\right]M_0^{}`$ (9)
$`M_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`(\alpha ,\alpha )M_1^{}\text{ (alternatively }M_1^{}=(\alpha ,\alpha )M_2^{}\text{ )},`$ (10)
where $`M_1^{}`$ consists of the doublets $`B_2B_3`$ ending in a strong base (NS) and $`M_2^{}`$ of the doublets ending in a weak base (NW).

Then

$`M^{}`$ $`=`$ $`M_1^{}M_2^{}`$ (11)
can be expressed as

$`M^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[(1,1)(1,\beta )\right]\left[(1,1)(\alpha ,\alpha )\right]M_0^{}.`$ (12)
Notice that the operator acting on $`M_0^{}`$ has the same functional form as the operator acting on $`M_0`$ above, except that $`\beta `$ acts as the third base instead of the first.

The sets $`M_1^{}`$ and $`M_2^{}`$ are invariant under the $`(1,\beta )`$–transformations. Then experience shows that the 32 codons in the class $`NB_2B_3`$, with $`B_2B_3`$ in $`M_1^{}`$ or $`M_2^{}`$ constitute a complete code codifying for the 20 amino acids and terminator signal (stop–codon), if allowance is made for deviating codon–assignments found in Mitochondria . For the codons in $`M_1^{}`$ this is true in the universal code; for codons in $`M_2^{}`$ $`AUA`$ should codify for $`M`$ instead of $`I`$ and $`UGA`$ for $`W`$ instead of stop signal. Both changes have been observed in Mitochondria. This more symmetric code has been considered more similar to an archetypal code than the universal code . Only after the last attribute $`H_3`$ was introduced the universal code was obtained, with the split of $`AUR`$ into $`AUA`$ ($`I`$) and $`AUG`$ ($`M`$) and $`UGR`$ into $`UGG`$ ($`W`$) and $`UGA`$ ($`t`$).

It has been speculated that primordial genes could be included in a $`0.55kb`$ open reading frame . The same authors calculated that with two stop codons this open reading frames would have appeared too frequently. From the present view the assignment of $`UGA`$ to a stop codon was a late event that optimized this frequency (this interpretation differs from the one proposed in  where a primordial code with three stop codons) is assumed. Other deviations of the universal code most likely also occurred in the last stages of the code’s evolution.

In the same way as before the sixteen $`B_2B_3`$ doublets can be represented as the vertices of a four–dimensional hypercube (Fig. 7). The sets $`M_1^{}`$ and $`M_2^{}`$ are also located in compact regions. Codons with $`B_2B_3`$ in $`M_1^{}`$ are frequently used in eukaryotes. In contrary, codons with $`B_2B_3`$ in $`M_2^{}`$ are frequently used in prokaryots. The described structure of the code allows a modulation of the codon–anticodon interaction energy .

## V Examples

Besides the results mentioned in the last section which refer to codon doublets, to further illustrate the significance of proposed approach, we are going to consider several examples of molecular evolution.

The first example (Fig. 2) refers to the alignment studied using the method of hierarchical analysis of residue conservation by Livingstone and Barton (Fig. 2 in ). In position 11 appear the following amino acids $`R`$, $`W`$, $`H`$, $`G`$, $`D`$, which according to their approach have no properties in common. In Fig. 2 this cluster of amino acids is shown. By looking at the Atlas of amino acid properties  we see that from the properties proposed by Grantham  (composition, polarity and volume) apparently the only requirement for the amino acids at this site is to maintain a certain degree of polarity. From this observation we may conclude that most probably it is an external site. Simply by looking at such a diverse set of amino acids one can hardly realize that they have clustered codons. This clustering facilitates the occurrence of mutations that in the course of evolution were fixed, in view of the low physico–chemical requirements at the site.

As a second example (Fig. 4) let us consider site 33 of the alignment of 67 $`SH2`$ domains, Fig. 6 of . We can see from Fig. 4 that the cluster around the codon $`CAC`$ ($`H`$) explains, by one–bit changes, the amino acids $`R`$, $`Q`$, $`L`$, $`H`$, $`D`$. Furthermore, a second cluster around the codon $`AGC`$ ($`S`$) explains the aminoacids $`R`$, $`N`$, $`S`$, $`T`$. Finally, a silent change from $`AGC`$ ($`S`$) to $`UCC`$ ($`S`$) accounts for the minor appearance of the small, neutral amino acids, $`A`$, $`T`$, $`P`$. In a similar way the variation of the hyper–variable region of immunoglobulin kappa light FR1 at position 18 can be explained (Fig. 8). The number after the amino acid symbol in Fig. 8 is the number of times the amino acid occurs in the alignment in .

As a third example consider the residue frequencies in 226 globins displayed in Table 3 of the paper by Bashford et al. . From this table we find that there are variable positions in which one or two residues predominately occur and the rest are only marginally represented and others in which the frequencies are more evenly distributed among the amino acids. As it can be easily shown, the first class of positions may be associated, at the codon level, with one (or two) attractor node(s) and its one–bit neighbors. The second one can be associated with closed trajectories in the hypercube. The corresponding figures are not included because of lack of space.

Finally, let us discuss the “sexual PCR” experiment. In the paper by Smith  a table is displayed showing the positions in the TEM–1 gene where mutations occur, together with the substitutions found in the variant genes ST–1, ST–2 and ST–4 which show increased resistance to cefotaxime. We refer to the mentioned paper for further details. Locating these mutations in the hypercube (Fig. 4) one can easily convince oneself that all mutations may be accounted by one–bit changes at the codon level. Therefore only six codons (four or five aminoacids) are searched in each mutation and not 19 alternatives. This finding helps to explain why this in vitro realization of a “genetic algorithm” was so successful.

It is well known in the field of Genetic Algorithms that a proper encoding is crucial to the success of an algorithm. Furthermore in  it is shown the superiority of Gray coding over binary coding for the performance of a genetic algorithm. As it was shown above the structure of the genetic code is precisely the structure of a Gray code. Therefore it is our claim that this is one of the reasons why very efficient variants were found after very few rounds of recombination. Most probably other reasons are: the initial population was not random, but consisted of selected sequences and these sequences were very similar among themselves. This explanation of the results of Stemmer’s experiment differs from the explanation advanced by Smith .

## VI Concluding Remarks

The present approach goes beyond the usual analyses in terms of single base changes, because it takes into account the two characters of each base and therefore it represents one–bit changes. Besides, the base position within the codon is also considered. The fact that single bit mutations occur frequently is expected from probabilistic arguments. However, one could not expect, a priori, that a cluster of mutations would correspond, at the amino acid level, to a cluster of amino acids fixed by natural selection. We have found that this situation presents itself for many positions of homologous protein sequences of many different families (results not included). The structure of the code facilitates evolution: the variation found at the variable positions of proteins do not corresponds to random jumps at the codon level, but to well defined regions of the hypercube. Finally, the Gray code structure of the genetic code helps to explain the success of “Sexual PCR” experiments.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work received economical support from: Proyecto CONACyT No. 1932–E9211. We thank professors Werner Ebeling and Michael Conrad for encouraging comments.


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# Variation after Angular Momentum Projection for the Study of Excited States Based on Antisymmetrized Molecular Dynamics

## Abstract

In order to study the structure of excited states we perform a variational calculation after spin parity projection (VAP) within the framework of Antisymmetrized Molecular Dynamics (AMD). The framework is proven to be a new powerful approach for the study of the various structures of excited states because it is free from model assumptions such as inert cores, existence of clusters, and the axial symmetry. By using finite range interactions with a density dependent term we reproduce well all the energy levels below 15 MeV in 12C. This is the first theoretical model that reproduces many $`E2`$ transition rates and $`\beta `$ decays to 12C successfully.

Clustering is one of the important features of the light nuclei. The Ikeda diagram  predicts molecule-like structures in the excited states, according to the activation of the inter-cluster relative motion. The cluster model has been successful for the study of the molecule-like states. However the model is not suitable for describing the shell-model-like features, such as the $`j`$-$`j`$ coupling and the particle-hole excitations. The model, as we see later, failed to reproduce important data such as the level spacing and the transition strength because the dissociation of clusters is not taken into account by the conventional cluster model. These shell-model-like aspects are often found in many states including the ground state. On the other hand, the shell model successfully reproduces properties of many excited levels of light nuclei (for example ), but a number of states in light nuclei have been left unsolved because it is difficult for the shell model to describe well-developed molecule-like states which may exist in low energy region.

There are very few approaches which can describe both the molecule-like and the shell-model-like phenomena. For instance, in 12C which has been studied for a long time , the structure of the excited $`0_2^+`$, $`0_3^+`$, and $`2_2^+`$ states is not yet clarified. Therefore, it is desirable to develop a theoretical approach that is able to deal with both aspects in a unified manner. Our aim is to systematically study how the structure of nuclei changes with increasing excitation energy.

The AMD has already proved to be a very useful theoretical approach for the structure of general light nuclei . The AMD basis wave functions are written as Slater determinants where the spatial part of each single particle wave function is a Gaussian. An important point of AMD is that we do not need model assumptions such as inert cores and the axial symmetry. In the previous works on the ground states of light unstable nuclei , we applied a simplest version of AMD in which we make energy variation only after parity projection of a Slater determinant. The simplest version of AMD was found to describe the properties of ground states successfully. We also studied the change in structure along the yrast line of 20Ne by a cranking method of AMD  instead of the angular momentum projection before energy variation.

In this letter, we propose a new microscopic approach of variational calculation after parity and total angular momentum projection within the framework of antisymmetrized molecular dynamics(AMD). In order to confirm the userfulness of the method, we apply this approach for the first time to the study of excited states of 12C using finite range interactions.

Concerning the formulation of AMD, the reader is refered to papers . An AMD wave function is a Slater determinant of Gaussian wave packets;

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{AMD}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{A!}}}𝒜\{\phi _1,\phi _2,\mathrm{},\phi _A\},`$ (1)
$`\phi _i=\varphi _{𝐙_i}\chi _i\tau _i:\{\begin{array}{c}\varphi _{𝐙_i}(𝐫_j)\mathrm{exp}\left[\nu \left(𝐫_j\frac{𝐙_i}{\sqrt{\nu }}\right)^2\right],\hfill \\ \chi _i=\left(\begin{array}{c}\frac{1}{2}+Z_{4i}\hfill \\ \frac{1}{2}Z_{4i}\hfill \end{array}\right).\hfill \end{array}`$ (6)
where the centers of Gaussians $`𝐙_i`$’s are complex variational parameters. $`\chi _i`$ is the intrinsic spin function parametrized by $`Z_{4i}`$ and $`\tau _i`$ is the isospin function which is fixed to be up(proton) or down(neutron) in the present calculation. We vary the energy expectation values for the parity and total angular momentum eigenstates (VAP calculation),

$$\frac{P_{MK^{}}^J\mathrm{\Phi }_{AMD}^\pm |H|P_{MK^{}}^J\mathrm{\Phi }_{AMD}^\pm }{P_{MK^{}}^J\mathrm{\Phi }_{AMD}^\pm |P_{MK^{}}^J\mathrm{\Phi }_{AMD}^\pm },$$
(7)
where the operator of total angular momentum projection $`P_{MK^{}}^J`$ is $`𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }D_{MK^{}}^J(\mathrm{\Omega })R(\mathrm{\Omega })`$. The expectation values are calculated numerically by the sum of mesh points instead of integral on Euler angle $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. We make energy variation by the use of the frictional cooling method . Here we represent the intrinsic wave function $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{AMD}`$ obtained by VAP for the lowest states with a given spin parity $`J^\pm `$ as $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0^{J\pm }`$. Higher excited states are constructed by superposing wave functions so as to orthogonalize to the lower states. That is to say that the $`n`$-th $`J^\pm `$ state $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{J\pm }`$ is calculated by varing the energy expectation value of the othogonal component to the lower states;

$$P_{MK^{}}^{J\pm }\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{J\pm }\underset{k=1}{\overset{n1}{}}P_{MK^{}}^{J\pm }\mathrm{\Phi }_k^{J\pm }|P_{MK^{}}^{J\pm }\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{J\pm }P_{MK^{}}^{J\pm }\mathrm{\Phi }_k^{J\pm }.$$
(8)
By making VAP calculations with various sets of $`\{J\pm ,n\}`$ we obtain many intrinsic states $`\{\mathrm{\Phi }_1,\mathrm{},\mathrm{\Phi }_m\}`$, which approximately correspond to the $`J_n^\pm `$ states. Final results are constructed by diagonalizing the hamiltonian matrix $`P_{MK^{}}^{J\pm }\mathrm{\Phi }_i|H|P_{MK^{\prime \prime }}^{J\pm }\mathrm{\Phi }_j`$ formed from all the intrinsic states. The resonance states are treated within a bound state approximation.

In this work the adopted interactions are the central force of the modified Volkov no1 of case 3  which consists of the finite range two-body force and the zero range three-body repulsive force as a density dependent term, the spin-orbit force of G3RS with two range Gaussians  and the Coulomb force. The Majorana parameter used here is $`m=0.62`$, and the strength of G3RS force is $`u_1=u_2=3000`$ MeV. We chose the width parameter $`\nu `$ for Gaussians in Eq.6 as 0.18 .

Energy levels of 12C are shown in Fig.1 compared with the experimental data. The AMD calculations reproduce the energy levels very well. In the cluster model calculations the level spacing between $`0_1^+`$ and $`2_1^+`$ was always underestimated. For instance, in a GCM calculation  it was 2.2 MeV which is much smaller than the experimental value 4.4MeV. In the present result the large level spacing between $`0_1^+`$ and $`2_1^+`$ agree with the experimental data. We think that it is because the theory describes successfully the dissociation of $`\alpha `$ cluster in the ground $`0_1^+`$ state due to the LS force. It is found that molecule-like states with well-developed 3$`\alpha `$ structures construct rotational bands of $`K^\pi `$=$`3^{},1^{},0_2^+,0_3^+`$. Even by a $`(0+2)\mathrm{}\omega `$ shell-model calculation for $`pshell`$ nuclei  they can not describe $`0_3^+`$ and $`2_2^+`$ states in the $`K^\pi =0_3^+`$ band because such states contain highly excited $`n`$ $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ components in terms of the shell model.

The transition strengths are of great help to investigate the structure of excited states. The theoretical and the experimental values of $`E2`$ transition strengths are shown in Table I. In a GCM calculation of the $`3\alpha `$ cluster model the $`B(E2;0_2^+2_1^+)`$ was about one third of the experimental data (see Table I. The present result for $`B(E2;0_2^+2_1^+)`$ is as much as the experimental data.

The calculated strengths of Gamov-Teller $`\beta `$ decay transitions from 12N to the excited states of 12C are shown in Table II and compared with the experimental data. The ground state of the parent nucleus 12N is obtained with a variational calculation after spin parity projection to $`1^+`$ states. It is difficult to discuss $`\beta `$ transitions to 12C within the framework of the $`3\alpha `$ cluster model, because $`\beta `$ decay of nucleons in $`\alpha `$ clusters is forbidden. In other words, the origin of the $`\beta `$ decay strength is the components of the dissociation of the $`\alpha `$ clusters. On the other hands, even in shell-model calculations with the large model space of $`(0+2)\mathrm{}\omega `$ the $`0_3^+`$ state does not appear in low energy region as mentioned above. Therefore there has been no theoretical approach which reproduce the strength of $`\beta `$ decay to the excited $`0^+`$ states. This is the first microscopic calculation that can describe a large number of the experimental data of the transition strength to the excited states of 12C. It means that in the present calculations the component of the dissociation of $`\alpha `$ clusters is reasonably large enough to explain the $`\beta `$ transition strength. This success is due to the flexibility of AMD wave functions which can describe both shell-model-like and molecule-like aspects.

Another shell-model-like aspect is found in the $`1_1^+(T=0)`$ state which is considered to be a shell-model-like state and can not be described in 3$`\alpha `$ cluster models. In this work the $`\beta `$ transition strength to $`1_1^+`$ from 12N reasonably agrees to the experimental data for the $`1^+(T=0)`$ state at 12.71 MeV, though the excitation energy is overestimated (see Table II and Fig 1).

In summary, we achieved the variation after the parity and the total angular momentum projection within the framework of antisymmetrized molecular dynamics and applied it to the excited states of 12C. The framework is a new approach for the study of the structure of excited states with freedom from any model assumptions such as inert cores and the axial symmetry. It is a practical method of the variation after spin parity projection with finite range interactions. The model can represent both clustering structures and the dissociation of clusters due to shell-model-like aspects within one framework. This microscopic model is a powerful tool which is applicable to stable as well as unstable nuclei. Many excited levels of 12C, $`E2`$ transition strengths and $`\beta `$ decays to the excited states are reproduced within one microscopic framework for the first time. We can obtain information of the structures of many excited states from the experimental data of the transition strength. It owes to the flexibility of the AMD wave function which can describe both shell-model-like and clustering aspects seen in the excited states.

The author would like to thank H. Horiuchi for many discussions and advises. She is also thankful to N. Itagaki, Y. Kondo and O. Morimatsu for helpful discussions. She is grateful to A. Ono for technical advices on numerical calculations. This work was partly supported by Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) of Osaka University and Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) for using computer facilities.


text:
# Acknowledgements

## Acknowledgements

###

I am very much indebt to Professor P.S.Letelier for helpful discussions on this subject of this paper. Thanks are also due to Professor Paul Tod for suggesting me to work with NP calculus with torsion many years ago during my post-doctoral at the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University. Grants from CNPq (Ministry of Science of Brazilian Government) and Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) are acknowledged.


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# A dynamical characterization of the small world phase

## 1 Introduction

Networks are prevalent in all domains of life and science. Social, economic and political networks are the backbone of human society. The internet is a network. The metabolic processes of living beings form a network with the substrates as nodes, which are linked whenever they participate in the same biochemical reaction. Protein-protein and gene expression and regulation are biological networks, etc.

Regular lattices and random graphs have for a long time been studied. More recently - small-world networks became the object of growing attention and were identified in many different fields. They seem to be the underling structure for some important phenomena like the rapid spread of diseases, social networks, cooperative behavior between competing agents, problem solving organization and communication networks.

Topologically, small-world (SW) networks are identified by the values of two statistical properties:

* the clustering coefficient (CC) that measures the average probability for two agents, having a common neighbor, to be themselves connected and
* the characteristic path length (PL), this being the average length of the shortest path connecting each pair of agents.

Regular lattices have long path lengths and high clustering, whereas random graphs have short path lengths but low clustering. SW networks exhibit short PL’s and, at the same time, high CC’s.

In many model networks, the simultaneous occurrence of high CC and low PL is observed over an interval between order and randomness, which is called the SW phase. However, this phenomenon can only be defined as a phase, in the statistical mechanics sense, if order parameters are found to characterize the regular-to-SW and the SW-to-random phase transitions.

Further information on the SW phenomenon has been obtained in the past from the study of several quantities. Farkas et al.  studied the spectral density of the adjacency matrix, with increasing randomness, concluding that, in spite of the blurring of singularities, a consistently high value of the third moment implies the existence of a large number of triangles in the SW network. Monasson  on the other hand studied the spectral properties of the Laplacian operator, that characterizes the time evolution of a diffusive field, and localization properties on the graph.

In this paper a dynamical systems approach is used to characterize the small-world phenomenon. Using the $`\beta `$model, we study a coupled map system on the network, with interactions defined by the network connections. The SW phase is related to the behavior of the ergodic invariants of the dynamics. Entrance to the SW phase is related to the Lyapunov spectrum and exit from the SW phase corresponds to the region where “entropy” and “conditional exponents entropy”  split apart.

## 2 The dynamical model

Consider a $`\beta `$family of models, each one with $`N`$ agents on a circle and periodic boundary conditions. For $`\beta =0`$, each agent in the model is connected to its $`2v`$ nearest neighbors. For $`\beta 0`$, the network structure is obtained by looking at each one of the connections of the $`\beta =0`$ structure and, with probability $`\beta `$, replacing this connection by a new random one.

On each one of the $`\beta `$networks, a dynamical system is defined, with a map at each node and convex-coupling interactions defined by the network connections

$$x_i(t+1)=\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}W_{ij}f\left(x_j(t)\right)$$
(1)
where

$$W_{ij}=\{\begin{array}{ccc}1\frac{n_v(i)}{2v}c\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & i=j\hfill \\ \frac{c}{2v}\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & ij\text{ and }i\text{ is connected to }j\hfill \\ 0\hfill & & \text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
$`n_v\left(i\right)`$ is the number of agents connected to $`i`$ and c is a control parameter.

For the agents dynamics we choose

$$f\left(x\right)=\alpha x\text{mod. }1$$
(3)
Typically $`\alpha =2`$.

For the $`\beta =0`$ network, each agent has exactly $`2v`$ neighbors and the Lyapunov exponents are

$$\lambda _0\left(k\right)=\mathrm{log}\left\{\alpha \left(1c+\frac{c}{v}\underset{j=1}{\overset{v}{}}\mathrm{cos}\left(j\theta _k\right)\right)\right\}$$
(4)
with $`\theta _k=\frac{2\pi k}{N}`$ , $`k=0,\mathrm{},N1`$. In the $`N\mathrm{}`$ limit, the Lyapunov spectrum is a continuous smooth function, as illustrated in the upper plot of Fig. 1. For reasons to be discussed below we always choose $`c`$ in such a way that, for $`\beta =0`$, the lowest Lyapunov exponent is zero.

As $`\beta `$ increases, the matrices of the tangent map cease to be regularly organized, the Lyapunov spectrum develops gaps and some of the exponents become negative. This is illustrated in the lower plot of Fig. 1 for $`N=800`$ and $`2v=6`$.

It is also the appearance of random long range connections that is responsible for the reduction of the path length in SW networks. Therefore it is natural to consider the modifications in the Lyapunov spectrum as the dynamical signature of the onset of the SW phase. Of particular dynamical significance is the shift of part of the spectrum towards negative values. That is, the randomness arising from the rewiring leads to an effective reduction of the dynamical degrees of freedom. We define $`D_\beta `$

$$D_\beta =\underset{\lambda _i<0}{}\lambda _i$$
(5)
to quantify this effect. To characterize the modifications of the Lyapunov spectrum, another possibility would be to measure the singular part of the spectrum associated to the gaps. However the natural intervals in the spectrum associated to finite $`N`$ make this measurement less reliable.

In the upper plot of Fig. 2 we show the average values of $`D_\beta `$ taken over $`100`$ different samples for each $`\beta `$ (with $`N=800`$ and $`6`$ as the average degree of the network). A good fit to all the data shown in the lower plot of Fig.2 is

$$D_\beta =cN\left(\beta \beta _{c_1}\right)^{\eta _1}$$
(6)
with $`\beta _{c_1}10^5`$ and $`\eta _1=1.01\pm 0.06`$.

In practice it is only after $`\beta 10^3`$ that small-world effects (and $`D_\beta `$ values) become appreciable. Nevertheless, the fact that the data is consistent with $`\beta _{c_1}=0`$ implies that, using $`\frac{1}{N}D_\beta `$ as an order parameter for the small-world phase, this phase starts at $`\beta =0^+`$, the regular phase being only the isolated point $`\beta =0`$.

To characterize the exit from the SW phase, we use the notion of conditional Lyapunov exponents . They were introduced by Pecora and Carroll in their study of synchronization of chaotic systems. Like the Lyapunov exponents, the conditional exponents are well defined ergodic invariants. The idea is that the conditions that in Oseledec’s theorem insure the existence of the Lyapunov exponents also establish the existence of characteristic exponents formed by subblocks of the tangent map matrix. Here, for each agent $`i`$, we consider a subblock of dimension $`d_i\times d_i`$ formed by himself and those that are connected to it. The positive conditional exponents $`\lambda _\beta ^{}(j)`$ associated to each subblock are computed and a dimension-weighed sum is performed over all subblocks. This gives a version of what elsewhere  has been called a conditional exponents entropy.

$$h_\beta ^{}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left(\frac{1}{d_i}\underset{\lambda _\beta ^{}>0}{}\lambda _\beta ^{}(j)\right)$$
(7)
Subtracting $`h_\beta ^{}`$ from the sum of the positive Lyapunov exponents, $`h_\beta =_{\lambda _\beta >0}\lambda _\beta (j)`$, we define the coefficient

$$C_\beta =\left|\frac{h_0^{}h_0}{h_\beta ^{}h_\beta }\right|$$
(8)
which is also an ergodic invariant.

This coefficient has the following dynamical interpretation: The Lyapunov exponents measure the rate of information production or, from an alternative point of view, they define the dynamical freedom of the system, in the sense that they control the amount of change that is needed today to have an effect on the future. In this sense the larger a Lyapunov exponent is, the freer the system is in that particular direction, because a very small change in the present state will induce a large change in the future. The conditional exponents have a similar interpretation concerning the dynamics as seen from the point of view of each agent and his neighborhood . However the actual information production rate is given by the sum of the positive Lyapunov exponents, not by the sum of the conditional exponents. Therefore, the quantity $`h_\beta ^{}h_\beta `$ is a measure of apparent dynamical freedom (or apparent rate of information production). As self-organization in a system concerns the dynamical relation of the whole to its parts, this quantity may also be looked at as a measure of dynamical selforganization.

In Fig. 3 we show the average values of $`C_\beta `$ taken over $`100`$ different samples for each $`\beta `$ (with $`6`$ as the average degree of the network and $`N=100,200,400,600,800`$). Notice the $`N`$-independence of $`C_\beta `$ which follows from the fact that, in Eq.(8) it is defined as a ratio of two quantities with the same $`N`$-dependence. For small $`\beta `$ values the difference between the entropy and the conditional exponents entropy is a small quantity, that may be easily computed from the network parameters. It means that each agent may have exact information on the global behavior from observation of his own neighborhood. When $`\beta `$ increases the difference changes sign and becomes very large meaning that the neighborhood information has ceased to provide reliable information on the actual dynamics. This is the dynamical correlate of the decreasing cluster properties and allows us to define the transition at the divergence point $`\beta _{c_2}`$ of $`C_\beta `$. We find

$$\beta _{c_2}0.04$$
(9)
Near the transition region

$$C_\beta \left|\beta \beta _{c_2}\right|^{\eta _2}$$
(10)
with $`\eta _21.14`$ below the transition and $`\eta _20.93`$ above it.

## 3 Conclusions

1 - The ergodic invariants (Lyapunov spectrum and conditional exponents) provide a link between the topological properties of SW networks and the dynamical behavior of a coupled map system modelled on the network. In addition, the power laws obeyed by these invariants provide a framework to identify the SW phenomenon as a phase in the statistical mechanics sense.

2 - Coupled map behavior, evolution of a diffusive field  and spectrum of the adjacency matrix  supply complementary information on the SW phenomenon. It is therefore conceivable that quantities obtained from these other approaches might also be used to construct order parameters characterizing the SW phase.


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# Metal-insulator transition in two-dimensional disordered systems with power-law transfer terms

## Abstract

We investigate a disordered two-dimensional lattice model for noninteracting electrons with long-range power-law transfer terms and apply the method of level statistics for the calculation of the critical properties. The eigenvalues used are obtained numerically by direct diagonalization. We find a metal-insulator transition for a system with orthogonal symmetry. The exponent governing the divergence of the correlation length at the transition is extracted from a finite size scaling analysis and found to be $`\nu =2.6\pm 0.15`$. The critical eigenstates are also analyzed and the distribution of the generalized multifractal dimensions is extrapolated.

Starting with Anderson’s work And58  more than four decades ago, the disorder driven metal-insulator transition carries on to be a subject of active research. The underlying basic concept has proven to be important in many physical situations because it provides an essential requirement for the microscopical understanding of certain quantum phase transitions in condensed matter physics. According to the scaling theory of localization,AALR79  noninteracting electrons in infinite one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) disordered systems are always localized at zero temperature. It is known that there are exceptions to this rule. In particular, the quantum Hall system (absence of time reversal symmetry) with its diverging localization length in the center of the Landau bands Bodo  and the 2D disordered system with symplectic symmetry Sympl ; SZ97  are notable examples. However, even in the presence of time reversal symmetry, indications of a metal-insulator transition have been reported in experiments on two-dimensional electron and hole systems.AKS00  These findings have further intensified the efforts to look for possible mechanisms that allow a metal-insulator transition in systems with spatial dimension $`d<3`$. Clearly, electron-electron interactions that were not taken into account in Ref. 2 are important at low temperatures and possibly may account for the observed behavior.AKS00

Another class of systems exhibiting a metal-insulator transition for noninteracting particles in dimensions $`d<3`$, can be represented by models that in contrast to the Anderson model include long-range transfer terms. This possibility was already indicated in Anderson’s paper,And58  but later addressed only a few times. For instance, the decay of the localized eigenstates has been investigated numerically for a 1D tight-binding system with long-range transfer terms.YO87  Also, the localization and dephasing of dipolar excitons in topologically disordered systems and the influence of weak long-range hopping on the 3D Anderson model have been studied LW87 ; Lev89 ; Lev90  as well as the problem of Bloch states for a particle moving fast through a lattice of Coulomb scatterers with power-law singularity.AL97  Instead of triggering the transition by varying the disorder strength, the crossover from localized to extended states has to be tuned by changing the exponent $`\beta `$ of the power law transfer terms $`V_{ij}|𝒓_i𝒓_j|^\beta `$.FM95 ; KM97a ; Lev99

Meanwhile, it has become clear that the behavior at the critical point and its multifractal eigenfunction statistics may be described by a one-parameter random matrix ensemble.KM97a  An intensively studied example is the power-law random banded matrix model (PRBM),MFDQS96 ; Kra99  which exhibits a transition from localized to extended states and contains multifractal eigenstates at the critical point. This was demonstrated by mapping the PRBM onto a nonlinear sigma model, which could be solved for limiting cases. In one thereof, the PRBM transforms to the 1D version of the model studied by Levitov.Lev89 ; Lev90  The corresponding critical properties have been investigated numerically recently.CGO01

Despite this considerable success, up to now it was not possible to solve the experimentally more important 2D models with long-range transfer terms analytically. Therefore, no quantitative estimates have been obtained for the critical quantities like the exponent $`\nu `$ of the correlation length or the fractal correlation dimension $`D(2)`$. The latter essentially influences the dynamics at the metal-insulator transition.Eta  In this paper we present the first results for the multifractal properties and the critical exponent of a 2D system with orthogonal symmetry, which was found to be $`\nu =2.6\pm 0.15`$.

The model investigated here describes noninteracting particles on a 2D square lattice with distance dependent random transfer terms $`V_{ij}=V\epsilon _{ij}(b/|𝒓_i𝒓_j|)^\beta `$ and random on-site potentials $`\epsilon _i`$. The corresponding Hamilton operator is given by

$$=\underset{i}{}\epsilon _i|𝒓_i𝒓_i|+\underset{ij}{}V_{ij}|𝒓_i𝒓_j|.$$
(1)
The $`\{\epsilon _i\}`$ and $`\{\epsilon _{ij}\}`$ are two sets of uncorrelated random numbers uniformly distributed between $`W/2`$ and $`W/2`$, and between $`S/2`$ and $`S/2`$, respectively. We take $`b=1`$, $`S/V=1`$, and fix the diagonal disorder by $`W/V=6`$. The unit of energy is set by $`V=1`$. The special choice of the diagonal disorder strength $`W`$ places the system in a certain volume of the parameter space where the transition is easier to access. The transfer terms, which allow transitions from a given lattice site to all others, depend on the corresponding distance via the power-law $`|𝒓_i𝒓_j|^\beta `$. By changing $`\beta `$ one tunes the metal-insulator transition. $`L`$ is the size of the square system measured in lattice spacings $`a`$, and Dirichlet boundary conditions are applied in both directions.

To investigate the localization behavior we apply the level statistics method which has proven to be a very powerful tool in the past.Sea93 ; LevStat  The required eigenvalues for the level statistics and the eigenvectors for the multifractal analysis were calculated by direct diagonalization. For the above chosen ratio of the diagonal and nondiagonal disorder, the density of states is symmetrical about the band center $`E/V=0`$ and only weakly energy dependent within the range \[$`2V,2V`$\]. The number of realizations calculated was such that for each set of parameters the total number of eigenvalues on the average add up to $`610^5`$ for system size $`L/a40`$ and $`310^5`$ for larger sizes. As in previous work, we choose the quantity $`I_0(\beta ,L)`$ as our scaling variable because this choice does not depend on any arbitrary cutoff parameter.ZK95b ; SZ97  Here, $`I_0(\beta ,L)=s^2`$/2 is half the second moment, $`s^2=_0^{\mathrm{}}s^2P_{\beta ,L}𝑑s`$, of the probability density $`P_{\beta ,L}(s)`$ for finding an energy difference of two consecutive eigenvalues, $`s=|E_nE_{n+1}|/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ denotes the mean level spacing. We performed a proper unfolding procedure and checked that the results were independent of the width of the energy interval around $`E/V=0`$ from which the eigenvalues were taken.

The eigenvalue statistics has been calculated within the energy interval \[$`1.5V,1.5V`$\] for square systems of linear size $`L/a=10,15,20,25,30,40,45,50,55,60,70,80,100`$, and $`120`$. The exponent $`\beta `$ of the power-law decay of the transfer terms was varied in the range $`1.7\beta 2.3`$. A total of 284 $`I_0(\beta ,L)`$ values have been accumulated. Increasing the size $`L`$, the magnitude of $`I_0`$ decreases for $`\beta <2`$, but gets larger for $`\beta >2`$ with an almost scale independent value at the point of intersection near $`\beta =2`$. The latter behavior is a signature of a critical level statistics connected with a quantum critical point Sea93 . In the limit $`L\mathrm{}`$, the scaling variable $`I_0`$ can take on three values. For $`\beta <2`$ only extended states are expected so that $`I_0=0.643`$ for orthogonal symmetry that is the universal random matrix result for the diffusive regime. For $`\beta >2`$ all states will be localized in the thermodynamic limit so that $`I_0=1.0`$ which corresponds to the Poisson probability density distribution, $`P(s)=\mathrm{exp}(s)`$. This means that the probability of having two neighboring eigenvalues close together is maximal, which is due to the negligible overlap of the associated localized eigenvectors. The third possible value $`I_0`$ can assume in the limit $`L\mathrm{}`$ is the critical value $`I_0^c`$ at $`\beta _c=2`$, which is nonuniversal and known to depend on model parameters as well as on the boundary conditions and on the shape of the system.Boundary

In Fig. 1, which for clarity shows only a subset of the raw data, a crossing of the $`I_0(\beta ,L)`$ values belonging to different system sizes $`L`$ can be recognized near $`\beta =2`$. However, the weak monotonous shift of the crossing point with increasing system size $`L`$ indicates an irrelevant scaling term. From the $`I_0(\beta =2,L)`$ data we get an estimate for the irrelevant scaling exponent $`y`$ (see inset of Fig. 1) which then was finally determined together with the correlation exponent $`\nu `$ using a renormalization group ansatz where the dimensionless quantity $`I_0(\beta ,L)`$ is expressed as a function,Scal

$$I_0(\beta ,L)=f_1(A_1L^{1/\nu })+A_2L^yf_2(A_1L^{1/\nu }),$$
(2)
containing a relevant and the leading irrelevant scaling variable $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$, respectively. The corresponding scaling exponents are $`\nu `$ and $`y`$. The functions $`f_1`$, $`f_2`$ as well as the scaling variables are expanded in Taylor series with $`\gamma =(\beta \beta _c)/\beta _c`$,

$$I_0(\beta ,L)\underset{p=0}{\overset{2}{}}(C_p+L^yD_p)(\gamma L^{1/\nu })^p$$
(3)
Here, $`C_p`$ and $`D_p`$ are the coefficients that control the relevant and irrelevant scaling fields, where $`C_0=I_0^c`$ determines the critical value of $`I_0(\beta ,L)`$ at $`\beta _c`$. Assuming that the deviations between the data and the model are random and caused by uncorrelated statistical noise due to the inherent disorder and the finite number of realizations, the best fit was attributed to the set of parameters with minimal $`\chi ^2`$ statistics. Since the critical power-law exponent is known,Lev89 ; Lev90  $`\beta _c=d`$, we can fix $`\beta _c=2`$ and obtain for the orthogonal 2D case $`I_0^c=0.784\pm 0.005`$, and a critical correlation exponent $`\nu =2.6\pm 0.15`$. The leading irrelevant scaling term is governed by an exponent $`y=1.25\pm 0.25`$. The resulting scaling curve is shown in Fig. 2 where the original data corrected for the irrelevant scaling terms, $`\stackrel{~}{I}_0(\beta ,L)=I_0(\beta ,L)L^y_{p=0}^2D_p(\gamma L^{1/\nu })^p`$, are plotted versus $`|\beta 2|L^{1/\nu }`$. We achieve almost the same results if only 178 data points from the restricted interval $`1.8\beta 2.2`$ are taken into account. In this case the quadratic terms in Eq. (3) can be neglected. To test whether our ansatz for the correlation length, $`\xi |\beta \beta _c|^\mu `$, is justified at all, we directly calculated $`\xi (\beta )`$ from our adjusted data using the method described in Ref. 24. The result, which is shown in Fig. 3, is consistent with our assumption and the best fit to the calculated data yields $`\mu =2.4\pm 0.1`$. It is well known that with this method MK83  one gets an estimate only for the lower bound of the true critical exponent $`\nu `$. It is important to mention that our result for the correlation length $`\xi (\beta )`$ in 2D differs completely from the asymmetrical function proposed for the corresponding 1D model.MFDQS96 ; CGO01

Our final result for the critical exponent, $`\nu =2.6\pm 0.15`$, is larger than the value accepted for the quantum Hall system $`\nu =2.35\pm 0.03`$,Bodo  but lies within the range of those reported for systems with symplectic symmetry (see, e.g., Ref. 25). Also, we would like to remark that our result for the correlation exponent is in good agreement with the value $`z\nu =2.6\pm 0.8`$ obtained recently from temperature scaling in an experiment on a 2D system where the disorder was generated by a layer of self-assembled quantum dots.Rea99  Thereby, one has to assume $`z=1`$ for the dynamical exponent as expected for interacting electrons. However, there are in the literature also reports of smaller Kea96  as well as larger values Sea98a  for the correlation exponent $`\nu `$ in 2D electron and hole gases. Provided that the accordance between the experimental value Rea99  and our result for the model presented above is not fortuitous, the coincidence indicates that both metal-insulator transitions belong to the same universality class.

Now, having determined the critical exponent of the correlation length for our model with power-law transfer terms, we turn to the analysis of the critical eigenstates $`(\beta =2)`$ for a square system of linear size $`L/a=150`$ and eigenenergy near zero (band center). A multifractal analysis has been performed along the standard procedure where the scaling of a “box-probability” is calculated, $`P(q,\lambda )=_i^{N(l)}(_{r\mathrm{\Omega }_i(l)}|\psi _E(r)|^2)^q\lambda ^{\tau (q)}`$, from which the generalized fractal dimensions $`D(q)=\tau (q)/(q1)`$ or, by a Legendre transform, the so called $`f(\alpha (q))`$-distribution can be derived.Fract  Here, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i(l)`$ is the $`i`$th box of size $`l=\lambda L`$ from which the $`q`$th moment of the modulus of the normalized eigenstate $`\psi _E(r)`$ is taken. In Fig. 4 we show the $`f(\alpha (q))`$ distribution in comparison with the parabolic approximation, $`f(\alpha (q))=d(\alpha (q)\alpha (0))^2/(4(\alpha (0)d))`$, which for finite systems is valid only for small $`|q|`$.Parabol  As usual in studies on finite systems, the deviations are larger for such $`\alpha (q)`$ that correspond to negative $`q`$ values because the negative exponents blow up those spots where the eigenstate almost vanishes. The correlation dimension is extracted to be $`D(2)=0.9\pm 0.05`$ so that the exponent $`\eta =dD(2)1.1`$ describing anomalous diffusion near the critical point is very large compared to the other known 2D situations, e.g., $`\eta 0.38`$ for the quantum Hall system Eta  and $`\eta 0.35`$ for the symplectic case.Sch95  Therefore, one has to expect a strong influence on the dynamical properties at the metal-insulator transition originating from the spatial amplitude fluctuations of the critical eigenfunctions.BHS96

In conclusion, we investigated a disordered two-dimensional lattice model with long-range transfer terms which are governed by a power-law decay $`|𝒓_i𝒓_j|^\beta `$. Using the method of level statistics, the existence of a metal-insulator transition has been demonstrated in a 2D system with orthogonal symmetry. The transition is tuned by the power-law exponent $`\beta `$ of the transfer terms. From a finite size scaling analysis the critical exponent determining the divergence of the correlation length near the transition has been obtained. We found $`\nu =2.6\pm 0.15`$ which is very close (assuming a dynamical exponent $`z=1`$) to an experimental result, $`z\nu =2.6\pm 0.8`$, which was estimated recently from temperature scaling.Rea99

We thank Ferdinand Evers for very helpful discussions.