Quantum states in disordered media. I. Low-pass filter approach

The current burst in research activities on disordered semiconductors calls for the development of appropriate theoretical tools that reveal the features of electron states in random potentials while avoiding the time-consuming numerical solution of the Schrodinger equation. Among various approaches suggested so far, the low-pass filter approach of Halperin and Lax (HL) and the so-called localization landscape technique (LLT) have received most recognition in the community. We prove that the HL approach becomes equivalent to the LLT for the specific case of a Lorentzian filter when applied to the Schrodinger equation with a constant mass. Advantageously, the low-pass filter approach allows further optimization beyond the Lorentzian shape. We propose the global HL filter as optimal filter with only a single length scale, namely, the size of the localized wave packets. As an application, we design an optimized potential landscape for a (semi)classical calculation of the number of strongly localized states that faithfully reproduce the exact solution for a random white-noise potential in one dimension.