arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Allan H. MacDonald.
We reply to the comment cond-mat/0008098 by Yang, Sun, and Chang on our paper "Theory of Diluted Magnetic Semiconductor Ferromagnetism", Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5628 (2000).
We present a theory of carrier-induced ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors (III_{1-x} Mn_x V) which allows for arbitrary itinerant-carrier spin polarization and dynamic correlations. Both ingredients are essential in identifying the system's elementary excitations and describing their properties. We find a branch of collective modes, in addition to the spin waves and Stoner continuum which occur in metallic ferromagnets, and predict that the low-temperature spin stiffness is independent of the strength of the exchange coupling between magnetic ions and itinerant carriers. We discuss the temperature dependence of the magnetization and the heat capacity.
The single-particle energy spectrum of a two-dimensional electron gas in a perpendicular magnetic field consists of equally-spaced spin-split Landau levels, whose degeneracy is proportional to the magnetic field strength. At integer and particular fractional ratios between the number of electrons and the degeneracy of a Landau level (filling factors n) quantum Hall effects occur, characterised by a vanishingly small longitudinal resistance and quantised Hall voltage. The quantum Hall regime offers unique possibilities for the study of cooperative phenomena in many-particle systems under well-controlled conditions. Among the fields that benefit from quantum-Hall studies is magnetism, which remains poorly understood in conventional material. Both isotropic and anisotropic ferromagnetic ground states have been predicted and few of them have been experimentally studied in quantum Hall samples with different geometries and filling factors. Here we present evidence of first-order phase transitions in n = 2 and 4 quantum Hall states confined to a wide gallium arsenide quantum well. The observed hysteretic behaviour and anomalous temperature dependence in the longitudinal resistivity indicate the occurrence of a transition between the two distinct ground states of an Ising quantum-Hall ferromagnet. Detailed many-body calculations allowed the identification of the microscopic origin of the anisotropy field.
Double-layer quantum Hall systems at Landau level filling factor $ν=1$ have a broken symmetry ground state with spontaneous interlayer phase coherence and a gap between symmetric and antisymmetric subbands in the absence of interlayer tunneling. We examine the influence of quantum fluctuations on the spectral function of the symmetric Green's function, probed in optical absorption experiments (cond-mat/9809373). We find that as the maximum layer separation at which the $ν=1$ quantum Hall effect occurs is approached, absorption in the lowest Landau level grows in strength. Detailed line shapes for this absorption are evaluated and related to features in the system's collective excitation spectrum.
We use the Kubo formalism to evaluate the contribution of acoustic phonon exchange to the frictional drag between nearby two-dimensional electron systems. In the case of free phonons, we find a divergent drag rate ($τ_{D}^{-1}$). However, $τ_{D}^{-1}$ becomes finite when phonon scattering from either lattice imperfections or electronic excitations is accounted for. In the case of GaAs quantum wells, we find that for a phonon mean free path $\ell_{ph}$ smaller than a critical value, imperfection scattering dominates and the drag rate varies as $ln (\ell_{ph}/d)$ over many orders of magnitude of the layer separation $d$. When $\ell_{ph}$ exceeds the critical value, the drag rate is dominated by coupling through an electron-phonon collective mode localized in the vicinity of the electron layers. We argue that the coupled electron-phonon mode may be observable for realistic parameters. Our theory is in good agreement with experimental results for the temperature, density, and $d$-dependence of the drag rate.
We consider the influence of an external periodic potential on the fractional quantum Hall effect of two-dimensional interacting electron systems. For many electrons on a torus, we find that the splitting of incompressible ground state degeneracies by a weak external potential diminishes as $\exp ( - L/ ξ)$ at large system size $L$. We present numerical results consistent with a scenario in which $ξ$ diverges at continuous phase transitions from fractional to integer quantum Hall states which occur with increasing external potential strength.