Abstract The study of the fractional quantum Hall liquid state of two-dimensional electrons requires a non-perturbative treatment of interactions. It is possible to perform exact diagonalizations of the Hamiltonian provided one considers only a small number of electrons in an appropriate geometry. Many insights have been obtained in the past from considering electrons moving on a sphere or on a torus. In the Landau gauge it is also natural to impose periodic boundary conditions in only one direction, the cylinder geometry. The interacting problem now looks formally like a one-dimensional problem that can be attacked by the standard DMRG algorithm. We have studied the efficiency of this algorithm to study the ground state properties of the electron liquid at lowest Landau level filling factor v = 1/3 when the interactions are truncated to the two most important repulsive hard-core components. Use of finite-size DMRG allows us to conclude that the ground state is a compressible two-electron bubble phase in agreement with previous Hartree-Fock calculations. We discuss the treatment of Coulomb interactions in the cylinder geometry. To regularize the long-distance behavior of the Coulomb potential, we compare two methods : using a Yukawa potential or forbidding arbitrary long distances by defining the interelectron distance as the chord distance through the cylinder. This allows us to observe the Wigner crystal state for small filling factor.
Abstract The study of the fractional quantum Hall liquid state of two-dimensional electrons requires a non-perturbative treatment of interactions. It is possible to perform exact diagonalizations of the Hamiltonian provided one considers only a small number of electrons in an appropriate geometry. Many insights have been obtained in the past from considering electrons moving on a sphere or on a torus. In the Landau gauge it is also natural to impose periodic boundary conditions in only one direction, the cylinder geometry. The interacting problem now looks formally like a one-dimensional problem that can be attacked by the standard DMRG algorithm. We have studied the efficiency of this algorithm to study the ground state properties of the electron liquid at lowest Landau level filling factor v = 1/3 when the interactions are truncated to the two most important repulsive hard-core components. Use of finite-size DMRG allows us to conclude that the ground state is a compressible two-electron bubble phase in agreement with previous Hartree-Fock calculations. We discuss the treatment of Coulomb interactions in the cylinder geometry. To regularize the long-distance behavior of the Coulomb potential, we compare two methods : using a Yukawa potential or forbidding arbitrary long distances by defining the interelectron distance as the chord distance through the cylinder. This allows us to observe the Wigner crystal state for small filling factor.
We investigate fractional quantum Hall states for model interactions restricted to a repulsive hard core. When the hard core excludes relative angular momentum m=1 between spinless electrons the ground state at Landau level filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}=\frac{1}{3}$ is known to be exactly given by the Laughlin wave function. When we exclude relative angular momentum 3 only, W\'ojs, Quinn, and Yi have suggested the appearance of a liquid state with non-Laughlin correlations. We study this special hard-core interaction at filling factor 31 on the sphere, torus, and cylinder geometry. An analysis of the charged and neutral gaps on the sphere geometry points to a gapless state. On the torus geometry the projected static structure factor has a two-peak feature pointing to one-dimensional density ordering. To clarify the nature of the ground state we perform extended density matrix renormalization group studies on the cylinder geometry for up to 30 particles. The pair correlation function allows us to conclude that the ground state is a two-particle bubble phase.
We study fractional quantum Hall states in the cylinder geometry with open boundaries. We focus on principal fermionic $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/3$ and bosonic $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/2$ fractions in the case of hard-core interactions. The gap behavior as a function of the cylinder radius is analyzed. By adding enough orbitals to allow for edge modes, we show that it is possible to measure the Luttinger parameter of the nonchiral liquid formed by the combination of the two counterpropagating edges when we add a small confining potential. Although we measure a Luttinger exponent consistent with the chiral Luttinger theory prediction for the full hard-core interaction, the exponent remains nontrivial in the Tao-Thouless limit as well as for simple truncated states that can be constructed on the cylinder. If the radius of the cylinder is taken to infinity, the problem becomes a Tonks-Girardeau one-dimensional interacting gas in Fermi and Bose cases. Finally, we show that the Tao-Thouless and truncated states have an edge electron propagator, which decays spatially with a Fermi-liquid exponent, even if the energy spectrum can still be described by a nontrivial Luttinger parameter.
The formalism introduced in a previous paper is used for discussing the Coulomb interaction of many electrons moving in two space-dimensions in the presence of a strong magnetic field. The matrix element of the Coulomb interaction is evaluated in the new basis, whose states are invariant under discrete translations (up to a gauge transformation). This paper is devoted to the case of low filling factor, thus we limit ourselves to the lowest Landau level and to spins all oriented along the magnetic field. For the case of filling factor νf = 1/u we give an Ansatz on the state of many electrons which provides a good approximated solution of the Hartree–Fock equation. For general filling factor νf = u′/u a trial state is given which converges very rapidly to a solution of the self-consistent equation. We generalize the Hartree–Fock equation by considering some correlation: all quantum states are allowed for the u′ electrons with the same translation quantum numbers. Numerical results are given for the mean energy and the energy bands, for some values of the filling factor (νf = 1/2, 1/3, 2/3, 1/4, 3/4, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5). Our results agree numerically with the Charge Density Wave approach. The boundary conditions are shown to be very important: only large systems (degeneracy of Landau level over 200) are not affected by the boundaries. Therefore results obtained on small scale systems are somewhat unreliable. The relevance of the results for the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect is briefly discussed.
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 study a quantum point contact in the fractional quantum Hall regime at Landau level filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/3$ and 5/2. By using exact diagonalizations in the cylinder geometry, we identify the edge modes in the presence of a parabolic confining potential. By changing the sign of the potential, we can access both the tunneling through the bulk of the fluid and the tunneling between spatially separated droplets. This geometry is realized in the quantum point contact geometry for two-dimensional electron gases. In the case of the model Moore-Read Pfaffian state at filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}=5/2$, we identify the conformal towers of many-body eigenstates including the non-Abelian sector. By a Monte-Carlo technique, we compute the various scaling exponents that characterize the edge modes. In the case of hard-core interactions whose ground states are exact model wave functions, we find equality of neutral and charged velocities, both bosonic and fermionic, for the Pfaffian state.
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.