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Anderson localization is the confinement of electron wave functions, or other wave modes, by interference between repeated wave scattering paths in static disorder. A localized eigenstate occupies a limited region even in a much larger sample. Disorder can therefore suppress diffusion without absorbing the wave. In 1958, Philip Warren Anderson studied random site energies and intersite coupling, finding a regime without transport. His paper develops a theoretical model; it does not report an Anderson laboratory measurement.^[ref]

The distinction from ordinary multiple scattering is the retention of wave phases: alternative paths contribute probability amplitudes before their squared modulus is taken. Adding path probabilities alone loses the cross terms responsible for interference. This makes Anderson localization useful as a warning about transport models: repeated deflections need not produce unlimited diffusion. It also connects electron transport with wave propagation in a random medium, although the detailed equations and experimental diagnostics differ between electrons, light and acoustic waves.

Philip Warren Anderson's 1977 lecture distinguishes localized magnetic moments from disorder-localized states. It credits Nevill Francis Mott with recognizing the significance of the mobility edge. A Mott insulator instead requires electron interactions and can exist without disorder.^[ref]

John Hasbrouck Van Vleck developed quantum mechanics explanations of magnetic susceptibility, including its temperature dependence; this is a distinct contribution from Anderson localization.^[ref]

In wave propagation in a random medium, the coherent field is the expectation of the complex wave amplitude, $m(\mathbf{r})=\mathbb{E}[E(\mathbf{r})]$. The remaining field $E-m$ has zero expectation. This is the coherent and diffuse wave fields decomposition. Statistical homogeneity of the medium does not make $m$ spatially constant when the incident field is localized: translation symmetry applies to the response together with its incident data. The coherent component can attenuate while the total ensemble-averaged wave intensity remains substantial.

Multiple scattering can enlarge the angular diversity reaching a receiver array. Reversing the paths then makes the array act like a larger aperture, improving the focus in appropriate regimes of wave propagation in a random medium.

A longitudinal Brownian field ${\mathcal{B}}_x(z)$ is a centered Gaussian random field withwhere $B$ is a valid transverse covariance kernel. For each fixed $z$ it is a scaled Brownian motion, and increments over disjoint longitudinal intervals are independent. Such a field drives a Markov model of wave propagation in a random medium. Its formal longitudinal derivative is Gaussian white noise in $x$, with transverse correlations described by $B$; it is not in general a Brownian sheet.