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arXiv:1011.5365 · New Journal of Physics

A general approach to quantum Hall hierarchies

J Suorsa, S Viefers, T. H. Hansson

Published Jul 21, 2011• 21 citations
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Abstract

The Abelian hierarchy of quantum Hall states accounts for most of the states in the lowest Landau level, and there is evidence of a similar hierarchy of non-Abelian states emanating from the ν=5/2 Moore–Read state in the second Landau level. Extending a recently developed formalism for hierarchical quasihole condensation, we present a theory that allows for the explicit construction of the ground state wave function, as well as its quasiparticle excitations, for any state based on the Abelian hierarchy. We relate our construction to structures in rational conformal field theory and stress the importance of using coherent state wave functions, which allows us to formulate an extension of the bulk–edge correspondence that was conjectured by Moore and Read. Finally, we study the proposed ground state wave functions in the limiting geometry of a thin torus and argue that they coincide with the known exact results.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/13/7/075006

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The Abelian hierarchy of quantum Hall states accounts for most of the states in the lowest Landau level, and there is evidence of a similar hierarchy of non-Abelian states emanating from the ν=5/2 Moore–Read state in the second Landau level. Extending a recently developed formalism for hierarchical quasihole condensation, we present a theory that allows for the explicit construction of the ground state wave function, as well as its quasiparticle excitations, for any state based on the Abelian hierarchy. We relate our construction to structures in rational conformal field theory and stress the importance of using coherent state wave functions, which allows us to formulate an extension of the bulk–edge correspondence that was conjectured by Moore and Read. Finally, we study the proposed ground state wave functions in the limiting geometry of a thin torus and argue that they coincide with the known exact results.
The abelian hierarchy of quantum Hall states accounts for most of the states in the lowest Landau level, and there is evidence of a similar hierarchy of non-abelian states emanating from the {\nu} = 5/2 Moore-Read state in the second Landau level. Extending a recently developed formalism for hierarchical quasihole condensation, we present a theory that allows for the explicit construction of the ground state wave function, as well as its quasiparticle excitations, for any state based on the abelian hierarchy. We relate our construction to structures in rational conformal field theory and stress the importance of using coherent state wave functions which allows us to formulate an extension of the bulk - edge correspondence that was conjectured by Moore and Read. Finally, we study the proposed ground state wave functions in the limiting geometry of a thin torus and argue that they coincide with the known exact results.
The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), now entering it's fourth decade, continues to draw attention from the condensed matter community. New experiments in recent years are raising hopes that it will be possible to observe quasi-particles with non-abelian anyonic statistics. These particles could form the building blocks of a quantum computer. The quantum Hall states have topologically protected energy gaps to the low-lying set of excitations. This topological order is not a locally measurable quantity but rather a non-local object, and it is one of the keys to it's stability. From an early stage understanding of the FQHE has been facilitate by constructing trial wave functions. The topological classification of these wave functions have given further insight to the nature of the FQHE. An early, and successful, wave function construction for filling fractions ν=p/(2p+1) was that of composite fermions on planar and spherical geometries. Recently, new developments using conformal field theory have made it possible to also construct the full Haldane-Halperin hierarchy wave functions on planar and spherical geometries. In this thesis we extend this construction to a toroidal geometry, i.e. a flat surface with periodic boundary conditions. One of the defining features of topological states of matter in two dimensions is that the ground state is not unique on surfaces with non trivial topology, such as a torus. The archetypical example is the fractional quantum Hall effect, where a state at filling fraction ν=p/q, has at least a q-fold degeneracy on a torus. This has been shown explicitly for a few cases, such as the Laughlin states and the the Moore-Read states, by explicit construction of candidate electron wave functions with good overlap with numerically found states. In this thesis, we construct explicit torus wave functions for a large class of experimentally important quantum liquids, namely the chiral hierarchy states in the lowest Landau level. These states, which includes the prominently observed positive Jain sequence at filling fractions ν=p/(2p+1), are characterized by having boundary modes with only one chirality. Our construction relies heavily on previous work that expressed the hierarchy wave functions on a plane or a sphere in terms of correlation functions in a conformal field theory. This construction can be taken over to the torus when care is taken to ensure correct behaviour under the modular transformations that leave the geometry of the torus unchanged. Our construction solves the long standing problem of engineering torus wave functions for multi-component many-body states. Since the resulting expressions are rather complicated, we have carefully compared the simplest example, that of ν=2/5, with numerically found wave functions. We have found an extremely good overlap for arbitrary values of the modular parameter τ, that describes the geometry of the torus. Having explicit torus wave functions allows us to use the methods developed by Read and Read \\& Rezayi to numerically compute the quantum Hall viscosity. Hall viscosity is conjectured to be a topologically protected macroscopic transport coefficient characterizing the quantum Hall state. It is related to the shift of the same QH-fluid when it is put on a sphere. The good agreement with the theoretical prediction for the 2/5 state strongly suggests that our wave functions encodes all relevant topologically information. We also consider the Hall viscosity in the limit of a very thin torus. There we find that the viscosity changes as we approach the thin torus limit. Because of this we study the Laughlin state in that limit and see how the change in viscosity arises from a change in the Hamiltonian hopping elements. Finally we conclude that there are both qualitative and quantitative difference between the thin and the square torus. Thus, one has to be careful when interpreting results in the thin torus limit.
We generalize the fractional quantum Hall hierarchy picture to apply to arbitrary, possibly non-Abelian, fractional quantum Hall states. Applying this to the $\ensuremath{\nu}=5/2$ Moore-Read state, we construct explicit trial wave functions to describe the fractional quantum Hall effect in the second Landau level. The resulting hierarchy of states, which reproduces the filling fractions of all observed Hall conductance plateaus in the second Landau level, is characterized by electron pairing in the ground state and an excitation spectrum that includes non-Abelian anyons of the Ising type. We propose this as a unifying picture in which ppp-wave pairing characterizes the fractional quantum Hall effect in the second Landau level.
We develop a formalism to describe quasihole condensates in quantum Hall liquids and thereby extend the conformal field theory approach to the full hierarchy of spin-polarized Abelian states and to several classes of non-Abelian hierarchical states. Most previously proposed spin-polarized quantum Hall wave functions appear as special cases. In this paper we explain the physical motivations for the approach, and exemplify it by explicitly constructing the level-two quasihole condensate state at filling fraction 2/3, and the two level-three states at 5/13 and 5/7 which are built from combinations of quasielectron and quasihole condensates.
Laughlin's wave functions, which describe the fractional quantum Hall effect at filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/(2k+1)$, can be obtained as correlation functions in a conformal field theory, and recently, this construction was extended to Jain's composite fermion wave functions at filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=n/(2kn+1)$. Here, we generalize this latter construction and present ground state wave functions for all quantum Hall hierarchy states that are obtained by successive condensation of quasielectrons (as opposed to quasiholes) in the original hierarchy construction. By considering these wave functions on a cylinder, we show that they approach the exact ground states, which are the Tao-Thouless states, when the cylinder becomes thin. We also present wave functions for the multihole states, make the connection to Wen's general classification of Abelian quantum Hall fluids, and discuss whether the fractional statistics of the quasiparticles can be analytically determined. Finally, we discuss to what extent our wave functions can be described in the language of composite fermions.
A most interesting feature of certain fractional quantum Hall states is that their quasiparticles obey non-Abelian fractional statistics. So far, candidate non-Abelian wave functions have been constructed from conformal blocks in cleverly chosen conformal field theories. In this work we present a hierarchy scheme by which we can construct daughter states by condensing non-Abelian quasiparticles (as opposed to quasiholes) in a parent state, and show that the daughters have a non-Abelian statistics that differs from the parent. In particular, we discuss the daughter of the bosonic, spin-polarized Moore-Read state at nu=4/3 as an explicit example.