Thermodynamic-limit bootstrap: Solving fractional quantum Hall ground states

Abstract

Strongly interacting ground states are usually computed in finite systems and then extrapolated to the thermodynamic limit (TDL). Here we develop a quantum many-body bootstrap that solves fractional quantum Hall ground states directly in the TDL. The method gives rigorous and quantitatively tight lower bounds on the ground-state energy and identifies the ground-state structure and topological order. For Laughlin and Pfaffian parent Hamiltonians, it reproduces exact pair-correlation functions and low-lying orbital entanglement spectrum (OES) nearly level by level. For Coulomb interactions, the rigorous TDL energy bounds closely match thermodynamic estimates from exact diagonalization and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) extrapolations, and the local diagnostics recover established Laughlin and Moore--Read OES counting and Friedel oscillations of the composite Fermi liquid. Beyond these benchmarks, the bootstrap resolves the thermodynamic ground states at $ν=1/4$ and $ν=12/5$, identifying a composite Fermi liquid and $\overline{\mathrm{RR}}_3$ topological order, respectively. The same framework applies equally well to Abelian and non-Abelian, gapped and gapless quantum Hall states. The TDL bootstrap therefore provides a general ground-state solver that determines both the energy and the state directly in the TDL.