arXiv subjects

Ajit C. Balram

Publications and source records attributed to Ajit C. Balram.

81 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Exact results for model wave functions of anisotropic composite fermions in the fractional quantum Hall effect

The microscopic wave functions of the composite fermion theory can incorporate electron mass anisotropy by a trivial rescaling of the coordinates. These wave functions are very likely adiabatically connected to the actual wave functions of the anisotropic fractional quantum Hall states. We show in this article that they possess the nice property that their energies can be analytically related to the previously calculated energies for the isotropic states through a universal scale factor, thus allowing an estimation of several observables in the thermodynamic limit for all fractional quantum Hall states. The rather weak dependence of the scale factor on the anisotropy provides insight into why fractional quantum Hall effect and composite fermions are quite robust to electron mass anisotropy. We discuss how better, though still approximate, wave functions can be obtained by introducing a variational parameter, following Haldane [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 107}, 116801 (2011)], but the resulting wave functions are not readily amenable to calculations. Our considerations are also applicable, with minimal modification, to the case where the dielectric function of the background material is anisotropic.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Fractionally charged skyrmions in fractional quantum Hall effect

The fractional quantum Hall effect has inspired searches for exotic emergent topological particles, such as fractionally charged excitations, composite fermions, abelian and nonabelian anyons and Majorana fermions. Fractionally charged skyrmions, which support both topological charge and topological vortex-like spin structure, have also been predicted to occur in the vicinity of 1/3 filling of the lowest Landau level. The fractional skyrmions, however, are anticipated to be exceedingly fragile, suppressed by very small Zeeman energies. Here we show that, slightly away from 1/3 filling, the smallest manifestations of the fractional skyrmion exist in the excitation spectrum for a broad range of Zeeman energies, and appear in resonant inelastic light scattering experiments as well-defined resonances slightly below the long wavelength spin wave mode. The spectroscopy of these exotic bound states serves as a sensitive tool for investigating the residual interaction between composite fermions, responsible for delicate new fractional quantum Hall states in this filling factor region.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Luttinger theorem for the strongly correlated Fermi liquid of composite fermions

While an ordinary Fermi sea is perturbatively robust to interactions, the paradigmatic composite-fermion (CF) Fermi sea arises as a non-perturbative consequence of emergent gauge fields in a system where there was no Fermi sea to begin with. A mean-field picture suggests two Fermi seas, of composite fermions made from electrons or holes in the lowest Landau level, which occupy different areas away from half filling and thus appear to represent distinct states. We show that in the microscopic theory of composite fermions, which satisfies particle-hole symmetry in the lowest Landau level to an excellent degree, the Fermi wave vectors at filling factors $ν$ and $1-ν$ are the same, and are generally consistent with the experimental findings of Kamburov {\em et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 113}, 196801 (2014)]. Our calculations suggest that the area of the CF Fermi sea may slightly violate the Luttinger area rule.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Phase Diagram of Fractional Quantum Hall Effect of Composite Fermions in Multi-Component Systems

While the integer quantum Hall effect of composite fermions manifests as the prominent fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) of electrons, the FQHE of composite fermions produces further, more delicate states, arising from a weak residual interaction between composite fermions. We study the spin phase diagram of these states, motivated by the recent experimental observation by Liu {\em et al.} \cite{Liu14a,Liu14b} of several spin-polarization transitions at 4/5, 5/7, 6/5, 9/7, 7/9, 8/11 and 10/13 in GaAs systems. We show that the FQHE of composite fermions is much more prevalent in multicomponent systems, and consider the feasibility of such states for systems with ${\cal N}$ components for an SU(${\cal N}$) symmetric interaction. Our results apply to GaAs quantum wells, wherein electrons have two components, to AlAs quantum wells and graphene, wherein electrons have four components (two spins and two valleys), and to an H-terminated Si(111) surface, which can have six components. The aim of this article is to provide a fairly comprehensive list of possible incompressible fractional quantum Hall states of composite fermions, their SU(${\cal N}$) spin content, their energies, and their phase diagram as a function of the generalized "Zeeman" energy. We obtain results at three levels of approximation: from ground state wave functions of the composite fermion theory, from composite fermion diagonalization, and, whenever possible, from exact diagonalization. Effects of finite quantum well thickness and Landau level mixing are neglected in this study. We compare our theoretical results with the experiments of Liu {\em et al.} \cite{Liu14a,Liu14b} as well as of Yeh {\em et al.} \cite{Yeh99} for a two component system.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Collective excitations of a system of coupled relativistic and non-relativistic two-dimensional electron gases

We study collective excitations of a two-dimensional electron system consisting of two kinds of charge carriers: relativistic or Dirac electrons with linear dispersion and non-relativistic electrons with parabolic dispersion. We find that the strength of the interaction between the different charge carriers, i.e., the inter-species interaction, plays a significant role in determining the number of plasmon modes as well as their dispersions in certain parameter regimes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

State Counting for Excited Bands of the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect: Exclusion Rules for Bound Excitons

Exact diagonalization studies have revealed that the energy spectrum of interacting electrons in the lowest Landau level splits, non-perturbatively, into bands, which is responsible for the fascinating phenomenology of this system. The theory of nearly free composite fermions has been shown to be valid for the lowest band, and thus to capture the low temperature physics, but it over-predicts the number of states for the excited bands. We explain the state counting of higher bands in terms of composite fermions with an infinitely strong short range interaction between an excited composite-fermion particle and the hole it leaves behind. This interaction, the form of which we derive from the microscopic composite fermion theory, eliminates configurations containing certain tightly bound composite-fermion excitons. With this modification, the composite-fermion theory reproduces,for all well-defined excited bands seen in exact diagonalization studies, an exact counting for $ν>1/3$, and an almost exact counting for $ν\leq 1/3$. The resulting insight clarifies that the corrections to the nearly free composite fermion theory are not thermodynamically significant at sufficiently low temperatures, thus providing a microscopic explanation for why it has proved successful for the analysis of the various properties of the composite-fermion Fermi sea.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Role of inter-edge tunneling in localizing Majorana zero modes at the ends of quasi one-dimensional p+ip systems

Potter and Lee have demonstrated the presence of Majorana zero modes at the ends of quasi one-dimensional (1-D) p+ip superconductors. We use conformal field theory (CFT) methods to show that inter-edge tunneling of the vortex excitations along the length of the channel is crucial for such localization. We show that localization of Majorana modes occurs also in quasi 1-D channels of the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall (FQH) systems when modeled, following Moore and Read, as the p+ip paired state of composite fermions. We propose a tunnel-interferometry experiment to detect these modes, which should show a π-phase shift of oscillations depending on whether a localized Majorana zero mode is present or not, which, in turn, can be controlled by varying the tunneling strength.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Non-perturbative corrections to mean-field behavior: spherical model on spider-web graph

We consider the spherical model on a spider-web graph. This graph is effectively infinite-dimensional, similar to the Bethe lattice, but has loops. We show that these lead to non-trivial corrections to the simple mean-field behavior. We first determine all normal modes of the coupled springs problem on this graph, using its large symmetry group. In the thermodynamic limit, the spectrum is a set of $δ$-functions, and all the modes are localized. The fractional number of modes with frequency less than $ω$ varies as $\exp (-C/ω)$ for $ω$ tending to zero, where $C$ is a constant. For an unbiased random walk on the vertices of this graph, this implies that the probability of return to the origin at time $t$ varies as $\exp(- C' t^{1/3})$, for large $t$, where $C'$ is a constant. For the spherical model, we show that while the critical exponents take the values expected from the mean-field theory, the free-energy per site at temperature $T$, near and above the critical temperature $T_c$, also has an essential singularity of the type $\exp[ -K {(T - T_c)}^{-1/2}]$.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2009

Scaling relation for determining the critical threshold for continuum percolation of overlapping discs of two sizes

We study continuum percolation of overlapping circular discs of two sizes. We propose a phenomenological scaling equation for the increase in the effective size of the larger discs due to the presence of the smaller discs. The critical percolation threshold as a function of the ratio of sizes of discs, for different values of the relative areal densities of two discs, can be described in terms of a scaling function of only one variable. The recent accurate Monte Carlo estimates of critical threshold by Quintanilla and Ziff [Phys. Rev. E, 76 051115 (2007)] are in very good agreement with the proposed scaling relation.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗