We study phases of itinerant anyons when hole-doping Laughlin-like states in fractional Chern insulators (FCIs). In light of the recent observation of time-reversal-broken superconductivity near FCIs in van der Waals materials, a theoretical understanding of doped fractional quantum Hall states on a lattice has been developed by Shi and Senthil [Phys. Rev. X 15, 031069], reviving old ideas about "anyon superconductivity". We test these ideas analytically within an effective parton mean-field theory and numerically with variational Monte Carlo, pointing out that the predicted state depends on whether the Laughlin order at $ν=1/m$ is described by a U(1), or an SU(m) Chern-Simons field, the latter implying a symmetry between the m parton species. Our results demonstrate that the interplay between band Berry curvature and effective anyon dispersion has crucial implications for which anyonic phase is realized. In the experimentally relevant scenario of hole-doping the $ν=1/3$ fermionic FCI, our results uncover a mechanism for the formation of an anyon superconducting state of half-integer central charge in the case when the energetically cheapest excitations are the fundamental 1/3 charge anyons, bypassing the need for these anyons to pair into charge-2/3 composites, which has generally been assumed in similar anyon superconductivity constructions.
We study phases of itinerant anyons when hole-doping Laughlin-like states in fractional Chern insulators (FCIs). In light of the recent observation of time-reversal-broken superconductivity near FCIs in van der Waals materials, a theoretical understanding of doped fractional quantum Hall states on a lattice has been developed by Shi and Senthil [Phys. Rev. X 15, 031069], reviving old ideas about "anyon superconductivity". We test these ideas analytically within an effective parton mean-field theory and numerically with variational Monte Carlo, pointing out that the predicted state depends on whether the Laughlin order at ν=1/m is described by a U(1), or an SU(m) Chern-Simons field, the latter implying a symmetry between the m parton species. Our results demonstrate that the interplay between band Berry curvature and effective anyon dispersion has crucial implications for which anyonic phase is realized. In the experimentally relevant scenario of hole-doping the ν=1/3 fermionic FCI, our results uncover a mechanism for the formation of an anyon superconducting state of half-integer central charge in the case when the energetically cheapest excitations are the fundamental 1/3 charge anyons, bypassing the need for these anyons to pair into charge-2/3 composites, which has generally been assumed in similar anyon superconductivity constructions.
We study quantum phases of a fluid of mobile charged non-Abelian anyons, which arise upon doping the lattice Moore-Read quantum Hall state at lattice filling \nu = 1/2 ν = 1 / 2 and its generalizations to the Read-Rezayi ( RR_k R R k ) sequence at \nu = k/(k+2) ν = k / ( k + 2 ) . In contrast to their Abelian counterparts, non-Abelian anyons present unique challenges due to their non-invertible fusion rules and non-Abelian braiding structures. We address these challenges using a Chern-Simons-Ginzburg-Landau (CSGL) framework that incorporates the crucial effect of energy splitting between different anyon fusion channels at nonzero dopant density. For the Moore-Read state, we show that doping the charge e/4 e / 4 non-abelion naturally leads to a fully gapped charge- 2 2 superconductor without any coexisting topological order. The chiral central charge of the superconductor depends on details of the interactions determining the splitting of anyon fusion channels. For general RR_k R R k states, our analysis of states obtained by doping the basic non-abelion a_0 a 0 with charge e/(k+2) e / ( k + 2 ) reveals a striking even/odd pattern in the Read-Rezayi index k k . We develop a general physical picture for anyon-driven superconductivity based on charge-flux unbinding, and show how it relates to the CSGL description of doped Abelian quantum Hall states. Finally, as a bonus, we use the CSGL formalism to describe transitions between the RR_k R R k state and a trivial period- (k+2) ( k + 2 ) CDW insulator at fixed filling, driven by the gap closure of the fundamental non-Abelian anyon a_0 a 0 . Notably, for k=2 k = 2 , this predicts a per
The interplay between topology and strong interactions gives rise to a variety of exotic quantum phases, including fractional quantum Hall states and their lattice analogs—fractional Chern insulators (FCIs). Such topologically ordered states host fractionalized excitations and, for spinful systems, are often accompanied by ferromagnetism and skyrmions. Here, we study a Hofstadter-Hubbard model of spinful fermions on a square lattice, extended by nearest-neighbor interactions. Using large-scale density matrix renormalization group simulations, we demonstrate the emergence of a spin-polarized 1 / 3 -Laughlin-like FCI phase, characterized by a quantized many-body Chern number, a finite charge gap, and hidden off-diagonal long-range order. We further investigate the quantum Hall ferromagnet at ν = 1 and its skyrmionic excitations upon doping. In particular, we find that nearest-neighbor repulsion is sufficient to stabilize both particle- and hole-skyrmions in the ground state around ν = 1 , whereas we do not find such textures around ν = 1 / 3 . The diagnostic toolbox presented in this work, based on local densities, correlation functions, and spin-resolved observables, is directly applicable in quantum gas microscopy experiments. Our results open new pathways for experimental exploration of FCIs with spin textures in both ultracold atom and electronic systems.
The question of anyon interactions and their possible binding plays a key role in the physics of fractional quantum Hall states. Here, we introduce a controlled and scalable approach to study anyon binding by working entirely within the Hilbert space of anyons. The resulting theory is characterized by an effective potential, which captures the electrostatic energy of classical anyon configurations, and a Kähler potential, which simultaneously encodes the anyon Berry phase and the structure of their Hilbert space; both quantities are readily computed using Monte Carlo methods for large systems, enabling reliable extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit. By applying the formalism of geometric quantization on Kähler manifolds, we construct the anyon Hamiltonian, which can be exactly diagonalized in the few-anyon Hilbert space. Applying our approach to the quasiholes of the ν=1/3 Laughlin state with screened Coulomb interaction, we find that Laughlin quasiholes form bound states for screening lengths comparable or smaller than the magnetic length. Remarkably, binding occurs despite both the bare electron-electron interaction and the quasihole electrostatic potential being purely repulsive. The bound-state formation is a Berry phase effect, driven by oscillations in the quasihole density profile on the ℓB scale that are invisible in the quasihole electrostatic potential alone. For multiple quasiholes, we identify a sequence of phases as the screening length is reduced: free e/3 anyons, paired 2e/3 bound states, three-anyon charge-e clusters, and larger composite objects. Finally, we discuss possible signatures in charge imaging experiments on quantum Hall systems and the relevance to the phase diagram of itinerant anyon phases in fractional quantum anomalous Hall materials.
Hidden weak-pairing superconductivity of non-interacting anyons obeying 31 statistics
We show that a non-interacting gas of charge-e/3 anyons with exchange statistics θ=−π/3 can superconduct through a hidden weak-pairing mechanism. Such an anyon gas arises naturally in doped fractional Chern insulators at filling 1/3 or 2/3, where projective lattice translations enforce three degenerate anyon pockets. Exploiting this three-pocket structure, we develop a flux-attachment construction in which the average statistical flux vanishes, thereby mapping the problem to three species of composite fermions (CFs) in zero effective magnetic field. We show that the anyon statistics itself, encoded in statistical gauge field fluctuations, supplies the pairing glue and drives the CFs into a p−ip paired state, which corresponds to a f−if physical superconductor. The CF strong-pairing phase is adiabatically connected to Laughlin's picture of anyon superconductivity, where charge-e/3 anyons bind into charge-2e/3 molecules, which then lead to superconductivity. By contrast, the more natural weak-pairing phase of CFs realizes a distinct superconducting phase - its edge is characterized by a chiral central charge c−=−1/2, in contrast to the prediction of integer c− for the anyon superconductor based on Laughlin's picture, thereby resolving the discrepancy between previous theories and recent numerical results. Our theory provides a natural framework for understanding superconductivity near fractional Chern insulators, as observed in recent experiments. Finally, we discuss extensions of our theory that predict new chiral superconductors adjacent to FCIs at other fillings.
The quantum Hall effect has been the prototypical example for many emerging fields of Physics, including the study of topological phases of matter, topological order, and topological insulators. The objects of interest in this thesis are anyons, which are elementary excitations in fractional quantum Hall (FQH) fluids. Anyons are quasiparticles with fractional charge and fractional statistics. The latter prop- erty makes it a subject of immense interest due to application in fault-tolerant quantum computing. Here, we employ a perspective that anyons are the appro- priate degree of freedom to describe the relevant physics of FQH systems. This is because when a topological phase is assumed and the energy gap goes to infinity, anyons (“quasiholes”) are the only possible elementary excitations, since they are not energetically punished by the correspondng model Hamiltonian. With respect to a realistic Hamiltonian, however, this choice of degree of freedom depends on the exact effective interaction in the system. For example, while the Laughlin state is the model state at filling factor n + 1/3 (where n is some integer), when the effective electron-electron interaction is more long-ranged, the quasiholes of a Gaffnian state may be excited and become the better degree of freedom to describe physics in the same filling factor. This perspective results in a surprising observa- tion that a Laughlin quasihole may fractionalize under certain conditions, leading to a quasiparticle of charge e/6 that can potentially be detected in experiments. Another important aspect of anyons is their intrinsic spin and the corresponding spin-statistics relation, which must account for the fact that FQH anyons are not point particles, but objects with finite sizes and intricate internal structures. Our investigation leads to a rigorous derivation of the general spin-statistics relation for anyons in Abelian FQH phases. Furthermore, we show it is possible to fully capture the important features of the statistics by a conformal Hilbert space (CHS) description. Our analysis provides the necessary tools to study such geometric effects, which we use to investigate how disorder in a realistic system may affect different experimental schemes for measuring anyon statistics.
Master's thesis in Theoretical Physics. The official university title is "Fractional Quantum Hall Effect: Current State and Perspectives"; this record uses the author's preferred, more descriptive title. This thesis develops a unified description of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) and topological order through three complementary frameworks: microscopic trial many-body wavefunctions, the algebraic theory of anyons and unitary modular tensor categories, and Chern-Simons effective field theory. The first part covers the physical foundations—Landau quantization, the TKNN invariant, Laughlin's wavefunctions, the hierarchy and composite fermion theories, and some non-Abelian states like the Moore-Read Pfaffian state. The second part develops the algebraic theory of anyons, from the braid group to fusion rules, quantum dimensions, topological spins, and the F- and R-matrices that characterize a unitary modular tensor category. The third part constructs the Chern-Simons effective field theory, deriving fractional charge, statistics, and ground-state degeneracy, unifying Abelian states via the K-matrix formalism, and then generalizing to non-Abelian states through 𝑈(1)ₘ × 𝑆𝑈(𝑁)ₖ Chern-Simons theory. The central result is that Chern–Simons theory provides a field-theoretic realization of the topological order introduced microscopically and algebraically in the earlier chapters, closing the circle between the three descriptions and providing a unified framework for the FQHE and topological order and anyon's physics.