The composite fermion (CF) theory gives both a phenomenological description for many fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states, as well as a microscopic construction for large scale numerical calculation of these topological phases. The fundamental postulate of mapping FQH states of electrons to integer quantum Hall (IQH) states of CFs, however, was not formally established. The Landau level (LL) projection needed for the microscopic calculations is in some sense uncontrolled and unpredictable. We rigorously derive the unitary relationship between electrons and the CFs, showing the latter naturally emerge from special interactions within a single LL, without resorting to any projection by hand. In this framework, all FQH states topologically equivalent to those described by the conventional CF theory (e.g., the Jain series) have exact model Hamiltonians that can be explicitly derived, and we can easily generalize to FQH states from interacting CFs. Our derivations reveal fundamental connections between the CF theory and the pseudopotential/Jack polynomial constructions, and argue that all Abelian CF states are physically equivalent to the IQH states, while a plethora of non-Abelian CF states can be systematically constructed and classified. We also discuss about implications to experiments and effective field theory descriptions based on the descriptions with CFs as elementary particles.
The composite fermion (CF) theory gives both a phenomenological description for many fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states, as well as a microscopic construction for large scale numerical calculation of these topological phases. The fundamental postulate of mapping FQH states of electrons to integer quantum Hall (IQH) states of CFs, however, was not formally established. The Landau level (LL) projection needed for the microscopic calculations is in some sense uncontrolled and unpredictable. We rigorously derive the unitary relationship between electrons and the CFs, showing the latter naturally emerge from special interactions within a single LL, without resorting to any projection by hand. In this framework, all FQH states topologically equivalent to those described by the conventional CF theory (e.g., the Jain series) have exact model Hamiltonians that can be explicitly derived, and we can easily generalize to FQH states from interacting CFs. Our derivations reveal fundamental connections between the CF theory and the pseudopotential/Jack polynomial constructions, and argue that all Abelian CF states are physically equivalent to the IQH states, while a plethora of non-Abelian CF states can be systematically constructed and classified. We also discuss about implications to experiments and effective field theory descriptions based on the descriptions with CFs as elementary particles.
We establish the quantum mechanics of composite fermions based on the dipole picture initially proposed by Read. It comprises three complimentary components: a wave equation for determining the wave functions of a composite fermion in ideal fractional quantum Hall states and when subjected to external perturbations, a wave-function for mapping a many-body wave function of composite fermions to a physical wave function of electrons, and a microscopic approach for determining the effective Hamiltonian of the composite fermion. The wave equation resembles the ordinary Schrödinger equation but has drift velocity corrections that are not present in the Halperin-Lee-Read theory. The wave-function constructs a physical wave function of electrons by projecting a state of composite fermions onto a half-filled bosonic Laughlin state of vortices. Remarkably, Jain's wave-function can be reinterpreted as the new in an alternative wave-function representation of composite fermions. The dipole picture and the effective Hamiltonian can be derived from the microscopic model of interacting electrons confined in a Landau level, with all parameters determined. In this framework, we can construct the physical wave function of a fractional quantum Hall state deductively by solving the wave equation and applying the wave-function , based on the effective Hamiltonian derived from first principles, rather than relying on intuition or educated guesses. For ideal fractional quantum Hall states in the lowest Landau level, the approach reproduces the well-established results of the standard theory of composite fermions. We further demonstrate that the reformulated theory of composite fermions can be easily generalized for flat Chern bands. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Quantum Hall systems offer the most familiar setting where strong interparticle interactions combine with the topology of single-particle states to yield novel phenomena. Despite our mature understanding of these systems, an open challenge has been to develop a microscopic theory capturing both their universal and nonuniversal properties, when the Hamiltonian is restricted to the noncommutative space of the lowest Landau level. Here we develop such a theory for the Jain sequence of bosonic fractional quantum Hall states at fillings $\ensuremath{\nu}=\frac{p}{p+1}$. Building on a lowest Landau level description of a parent composite Fermi liquid at $\ensuremath{\nu}=1$, we describe how to dope the system to reach the Jain states. Upon doping, the composite fermions fill noncommutative generalizations of Landau levels, and the Jain states correspond to integer composite fermion filling. Using this approach, we obtain an approximate expression for the bosonic Jain sequence gaps with no reference to any long-wavelength approximation. Furthermore, we show that the universal properties, such as Hall conductivity, are encoded in an effective noncommutative Chern-Simons theory, which is obtained on integrating out the composite fermions. This theory has the same topological content as the familiar Abelian Chern-Simons theory on commutative space.
Motivated by the structure of the quasiparticle wavefunction in the composite fermion (CF) theory for fractional quantum Hall filling factor [Formula: see text] (m odd), I consider a suitable quasiparticle operator in differential form, as a modified form of Laughlin's quasiparticle operator, that reproduces quasiparticle wave function as predicted in the CF theory, without a priori assumption of the presence of CFs. I further consider the conjugate of this operator as quasihole operator for obtaining a novel quasihole wave function for 1/m state. Each of these wave functions is interpreted as expelling an electron into a different Hilbert subspace from the original Hilbert space of the Laughlin condensate while still maintaining its correlation (although changed) with the electrons in the condensate such that the expelled electron behaves as a CF with respect to the electrons in the condensate. With this interpretation, I show that the ground state wavefunctions for general states at filling fractions [Formula: see text], respectively, can be constructed as coherent superposition of n coupled Laughlin condensates and their 'conjugates', formed at different Hilbert subspaces. The corresponding wave functions, specially surprising for [Formula: see text] sequence of states, are identical with those proposed in the theory of noninteracting CFs. The states which were considered as fractional quantum Hall effect of interacting CFs, can also be treated in the same footing as for the prominent sequences of states describing as the coupled condensates among which one is a non-Laughlin condensate in a different Hilbert subspace. Further, I predict that the half filling of the lowest Landau level is a quantum critical point for phase transition between two topologically distinct phases each corresponding to a family of states: one consists of large number of coupled Laughlin condensates of filling factor 1/3 and the other corresponds to large number of coupled conjugate Laughlin condensates of filling factor 1, which may be distinguished, respectively, by the absence and presence of upstream edge modes.
We show that there is an emergent lattice description for the continuous fractional quantum Hall (FQH) systems, with a generalized set of few-body coherent states. In particular, model Hamiltonians of the FQH effect (FQHE) are equivalent to the real-space von Neumann lattice of local projection operators imposed on a continuous system in the thermodynamic limit. It can be analytically derived that tuning local one-body potentials in such lattices amounts to the tuning of individual two- or few-body pseudopotentials. For some cases, we can realize pure few-body pseudopotentials important for stabilizing exotic non-Abelian topological phases. Thus, this new approach can potentially lead to the experimental realization of coveted non-Abelian quantum fluids including the Moore-Read state and the Fibonacci state. The reformulation of the FQHE as a sum of local projections opens up new paths for rigorously proving the incompressibility of microscopic Hamiltonians in the thermodynamic limit.
Field theories of the composite-fermion (CF) metal model it as a Fermi sea of composite fermions coupled to an emergent gauge field. Within a random phase approximation, these theories predict that the Landau damping of the gauge field resulting from its coupling to the low-energy, long-wavelength CF particle-hole excitations modifies the electrons' density-density correlation function related to the static structure factor S(q) at wave vector q. This produces a nonanalytic correction ∝q^{3}lnq to S(q) (with the magnetic length ℓ_{B}=1). Thanks to the recently developed quaternion formulation for Jain-Kamilla projection of CF wave functions, the evaluation of S(q) from the accurate microscopic theory of composite fermions has now become possible for systems containing as many as N=900 CFs, which enables a reliable determination of the small-q behavior of S(q). We study CF metals corresponding to electrons at Landau level filling factors ν=1/2 and 1/4, and for completeness, also of bosons at ν=1 and 1/3. In the q→0 limit, our microscopic calculation reveals a q^{3} term in S(q) of the CF metals rather than q^{3}lnq. This behavior is well predicted by a model of a noninteracting Fermi sea of dipolar CFs, which also obtains its coefficient accurately.
Nearly fifty years after its experimental debut, the quantum hall effect has produced perhaps more unique descriptions than any other subject of condensed matter physics. From topological band theory to non-commutative geometry, topological and conformal field theories, random matrix models and more, each approach captures a subset of the essential features, and compliments the others to produce a beautiful mosaic description. In this thesis, we revisit the fractional quantum hall (FQH) effect from its oldest vantage point, that of the trial wavefunctions and the parent Hamiltonians which stabilize them. Laughlin's observation of the importance of the theory of holomorphic functions to describing incompressible states in a partially filled Landau level has produced a coherent paradigm for realizing FQH parent Hamiltonians as frustration-free exactly-solvable one-dimensional models through dimensional reduction. Trial wavefunctions are then classified in terms of a small number of product states which generate all other states in the orbital-occupation expansion of the full state by a sequence of angular-momentum-preserving squeezing operations. These unentangled states are called the DNA of the FQH state, and they can be described in terms of simple local rules called generalized Pauli principles (GPP) of the form "at most r electrons can occupy k consecutive orbitals". It was only recently shown that an analysis of this form can be carried out in second-quantization for states with Landau level mixing, such as the Jain composite-fermion and parton series. In this case, the GPPs are generalized once further to entangled Pauli principles (EPP) for which the DNA may be entangled with respect to the extra Landau level index. In the first part of this thesis, we prove a theorem that allows for a rigorous computation of EPPs given a frustration free k-body parent Hamiltonian by examining only k-particle zero-modes, and give an example of its utility by demonstrating the exact-solvability of a correlated pair-hopping model that can be derived as a special limit of a FQH parent Hamiltonian. In the second part, taking advantage of the second quantized EPP analysis from the continuum, we derive a class of bosonic lattice models for states in multiple Landau levels which, in the presence of a contact interaction, are shown to stabilize non-Abelian ground states. Furthermore, we show how the EPP can be used to compute the degeneracies of quasihole excitations, and therefore the topological order through the bulk-boundary correspondence, which we verify with simple numerics. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first exponentially-local exactly-solvable fractional Chern insulator model for non-Abelian states with only two-body interactions.