arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J. K. Jain.
The true nature of the lowest-energy, long-wavelength neutral excitation of the fractional quantum Hall effect has been a long outstanding problem. In this Letter, we establish that it is a two-roton bound state.
We consider the effect of interactions on electrons confined to two dimensions at Landau level filling $ν=2$, with the specific aim to determine the range of parameters where the fully polarized state is stable. We calculate the charge and the spin density collective modes in random phase approximation (RPA) including vertex corrections (also known as time dependent Hartree Fock), and treating the Landau level mixing accurately within the subspace of a single particle hole pair. It is found that the spin wave excitation mode of the fully polarized state has a roton minimum which deepens as a result of the interaction induced Landau level mixing, and the energy of the roton vanishes at a critical Zeeman energy signaling an instability of the fully polarized state at still lower Zeeman energies. The feasibility of the experimental observation of the roton minimum in the spin wave mode and its softening will be discussed. The spin and charge density collective modes of the unpolarized state are also considered, and a phase diagram for the $ν=2$ state as a function of $r_{S}$ and the Zeeman energy is obtained.
The single mode approximation has proved useful for the excitation spectrum at $ν=1/3$. We apply it to general fractions and find that it predicts $n$ magneto-roton minima in the dispersion of the Girvin-MacDonald-Platzman collective mode for the fractional quantum Hall states at $ν=n/(2n+1)$, and one magneto-roton minimum for both the composite Fermi sea and the paired composite fermion state. Experimental relevance of the results will be considered.
It is argued that the composite fermion liquid is a promising candidate for an observation of the elusive, interaction driven magnetization first proposed by Bloch seven decades ago. In analogy to what is theoretically believed to be the case for the idealized electron gas in zero magnetic field, this spontaneously broken symmetry phase is predicted to occur prior to a transition into the Wigner crystal.
The activation gaps for fractional quantum Hall states at filling fractions $ν=n/(2n+1)$ are computed for heterojunction, square quantum well, as well as parabolic quantum well geometries, using an interaction potential calculated from a self-consistent electronic structure calculation in the local density approximation. The finite thickness is estimated to make $\sim$30% correction to the gap in the heterojunction geometry for typical parameters, which accounts for roughly half of the discrepancy between the experiment and theoretical gaps computed for a pure two dimensional system. Certain model interactions are also considered. It is found that the activation energies behave qualitatively differently depending on whether the interaction is of longer or shorter range than the Coulomb interaction; there are indications that fractional Hall states close to the Fermi sea are destabilized for the latter.
The microscopic approach of Murthy and Shankar, which has recently been used to calculate the transport gaps of quantum Hall states with fractions p/(2ps+1), also implies scaling relations between gaps within a single sequence (fixed s) as well as between gaps of corresponding states in different sequences. This work tests these relations for a system of electrons in the lowest Landau level interacting with a model potential cutoff at high momenta due to sample thickness.
We find that for the pure Coulomb repulsion the composite Fermi sea at $ν=1/2$ is on the verge of an instability to triplet pairing of composite fermions. It is argued that a transition into the paired state, described by a Pfaffian wave function, may be induced if the short-range part of the interaction is softened by increasing the thickness of the two-dimensional electron system.
Single particle basis functions for composite fermions are obtained from which many-composite fermion states confined to the lowest electronic Landau level can be constructed in the standard manner, i.e., by building Slater determinants. This representation enables a Monte Carlo study of systems containing a large number of composite fermions, yielding new quantitative and qualitative information. The ground state energy and the gaps to charged and neutral excitations are computed for a number of fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) states, earlier off-limits to a quantitative investigation. The ground state energies are estimated to be accurate to \sim 0.1% and the gaps at the level of a few percent. It is also shown that at Landau level fillings smaller than or equal to 1/9 the FQHE is unstable to a spontaneous creation of excitons of composite fermions. In addition, this approach provides new conceptual insight into the structure of the composite fermion wave functions, resolving in the affirmative the question of whether it is possible to motivate the composite fermion theory entirely within the lowest Landau level, without appealing to higher Landau levels.
The pair distribution function and the static structure factor are computed for composite fermions. Clear and robust evidence for a $2k_F$ structure is seen in a range of filling factors in the vicinity of the half-filled Landau level. Surprisingly, it is found that filled Landau levels of composite fermions, i.e. incompressible FQHE states, bear a stronger resemblance to a Fermi sea than do filled Landau levels of electrons.
We construct a new representation of composite fermion wave functions in the lowest Landau level which enables Monte Carlo computations at arbitrary filling factors for a fairly large number of composite fermions, thus clearing the way toward a more detailed quantitative investigation of the fractional quantum Hall effect. As an illustrative application, thermodynamic estimates for the transport gaps of several spin polarized incompressible states have been obtained.
It is verified that, at small Zeeman energies, the charged excitations in the vicinity of 1/3 filled Landau level are skyrmions of composite fermions, analogous to the skyrmions of electrons near filling factor unity. These are found to be relevant, however, only at very low magnetic fields.
The low-energy excitations of filled Landau levels (LL's) of electrons involve promotion of a single electron from the topmost filled LL to the lowest empty LL. These are called excitons or collective modes. The incompressible fractional quantum Hall states are understood as filled LL's of composite fermions, and the low-energy neutral excitations are excitons of composite fermions. New techniques are developed to study large systems, which provide detailed information about the dispersions of the composite fermion excitons. In particular, it is found that the interaction energy of the exciton is well described by the `unprojected' composite fermion theory.
In the composite fermion model of the fractional quantum Hall effect, composite fermions experience, in addition to the usual potential disorder, also a magnetic flux disorder. Motivated by this, we investigate the localization properties of a single fermion in two dimensions, moving in the presence of both potential and magnetic flux disorders, but with a non-zero average magnetic field. It is found that the exponent characterizing the divergence of the localization length is not changed upon the addition of the flux disorder, provided it is not too large, suggesting that the transitions between fractionally quantized Hall plateaus belong to the same universality class as those between the integrally quantized ones.
The low energy neutral excitations of incompressible fractional quantum Hall states are called collective modes or magnetic excitons. This work develops techniques for computing their dispersion at general filling fractions for reasonably large systems. New structure is revealed; in particular, the collective mode at 1/3 is found to possess several minima, with the energy of the principal minimum significantly smaller than the earlier estimate. \pacs{73.40.Hm, 73.20.Dx, 73.20.Mf}
We study the applicability of composite fermion theory to electrons in two-dimensional parabolically-confined quantum dots in a strong perpendicular magnetic field in the limit of low Zeeman energy. The non-interacting composite fermion spectrum correctly specifies the primary features of this system. Additional features are relatively small, indicating that the residual interaction between the composite fermions is weak. \footnote{Published in Phys. Rev. B {\bf 52}, 2798 (1995).}
Motivated by a mean-field approach, which has been employed for anyon superfluidity and the fractional quantum Hall effect, the quantum Hall effect (QHE) of hard-core bosons is investigated. It is shown that QHE is possible {\em only} in the thermodynamic limit. The filling factors where QHE may be expected are obtained with the help of two adiabatic schemes.
Composite fermions in a partially filled quasi-Landau level may be viewed as quasielectrons of the underlying fractional quantum Hall state, suggesting that a quasielectron is simply a dressed electron, as often is true in other interacting electron systems, and as a result has the same intrinsic charge and exchange statistics as an electron. This paper discusses how this result is reconciled with the earlier picture in which quasiparticles are viewed as fractionally-charged fractional-statistics ``solitons". While the two approaches provide the same answers for the long-range interactions between the quasiparticles, the dressed-electron description is more conventional and unifies the view of quasiparticle dynamics in and beyond the fractional quantum Hall regime.
According to the composite fermion theory, the interacting electron system at filling factor $ν$ is equivalent to the non-interacting composite fermion system at $ν^*=ν/(1-2mν)$, which in turn is related to the non-interacting electron system at $ν^*$. We show that several eigenstates of non-interacting electrons at $ν^*$ do not have any partners for interacting electrons at $ν$, but, upon composite fermion transformation, these states are eliminated, and the remaining states provide a good description of the spectrum at $ν$. We also show that the collective mode branches of incompressible states are well described as the collective modes of composite fermions. Our results suggest that, at small wave vectors, there is a single well defined collective mode for all fractional quantum Hall states. Implications for the Chern-Simons treatment of composite fermions will be discussed.