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Bulletin of the American Physical Society

An Exact Solution for the Half-filled Lowest Landau Level

Emil J. Bergholtz, A. Karlhede

Published Mar 15, 2006• 0 citations
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Abstract

We present an exact solution for the interacting electron gas in the half-filled lowest Landau level on a thin torus. The low energy sector consists of non-interacting, one-dimensional, neutral fermions (dipoles). The ground state, which is homogeneous, is the Fermi sea obtained by filling the negative energy states and the excited states are the gapless neutral excitations out of this one-dimensional sea. We identify this ground state as a version of the Rezayi-Read state, and find that it develops continuously, as the circumference grows, into the Rezayi-Read state that is believed to describe the observed metallic phase in the two-dimensional system. This suggests a Luttinger liquid description of the half-filled Landau level.

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arXiv:1506.02747•Physical Review Letters•Oct 29, 2015•59 citations
We present an exact solution for the interacting electron gas in the half-filled lowest Landau level on a thin torus. The low energy sector consists of non-interacting, one-dimensional, neutral fermions (dipoles). The ground state, which is homogeneous, is the Fermi sea obtained by filling the negative energy states and the excited states are the gapless neutral excitations out of this one-dimensional sea. We identify this ground state as a version of the Rezayi-Read state, and find that it develops continuously, as the circumference grows, into the Rezayi-Read state that is believed to describe the observed metallic phase in the two-dimensional system. This suggests a Luttinger liquid description of the half-filled Landau level.
A solvable microscopic model of interacting electrons in a half-filled Landau level is presented. The Hamiltonian is a well-defined limit of the electron-electron interaction. The low energy sector consists of a set of independent, spatially interlaced, one-dimensional systems of non-interacting fermionic dipoles, each system with a Fermi sea ground state. The total number of dipoles in the set of Fermi seas forming the two-dimensional ground state equals the number of electrons in the system and the density of states at the Fermi level is that of a two-dimensional Fermi gas. The model is obtained by generalizing, or rather adopting, the existing exact solution on a thin, but not too thin, torus to the two-dimensional bulk case.
We consider the lowest Landau level on a torus as a function of its circumference L 1 . When L 1 → 0, the ground state at general rational filling fraction is a crystal with a gap—a Tao–Thouless state. For filling fractions ν = p /(2 pm + 1), these states are the limits of Laughlin's or Jain's wavefunctions describing the gapped quantum Hall states when L 1 → ∞ . For the half-filled Landau level, there is a transition to a Fermi sea of non-interacting neutral fermions (dipoles), or rather to a Luttinger liquid modification thereof, at L 1 ∼ 5 magnetic lengths. Using exact diagonalization we identify this state as a version of the Rezayi–Read state, and find that it develops continuously into the state that is believed to describe the observed metallic phase as L 1 → ∞ . Furthermore, the effective Landau level structure that emerges within the lowest Landau level is found to be a consequence of the magnetic symmetries.
We consider spin-polarized electrons in a single Landau level on a torus. The quantum Hall problem is mapped onto a one-dimensional lattice model with lattice constant $2\ensuremath{\pi}/{L}_{1}$, where L1{L}_{1}L1​ is a circumference of the torus (in units of the magnetic length). In the Tao-Thouless limit ${L}_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$, the interacting many-electron problem is exactly diagonalized at any rational filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}=p/q\ensuremath{\le}1$. For odd qqq, the ground state has the same qualitative properties as a bulk $({L}_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty})$ quantum Hall hierarchy state and the lowest-energy quasiparticle excitations have the same fractional charges as in the bulk. These states are the ${L}_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$ limits of the Laughlin and Jain wave functions for filling fractions where these exist. We argue that the exact solutions generically, for odd qqq, are continuously connected to the two-dimensional bulk quantum Hall hierarchy states---i.e., that there is no phase transition as ${L}_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ for filling factors where such states can be observed. For even-denominator fractions, a phase transition occurs as L1{L}_{1}L1​ increases. For $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/2$ this leads to the system being mapped onto a Luttinger liquid of neutral particles at small but finite L1{L}_{1}L1​; this then develops continuously into the composite fermion wave function that is believed to describe the bulk $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/2$ system. The analysis generalizes to non-Abelian quantum Hall states.
We consider bosons at Landau level filling ν = 1 on a thin torus. In analogy with previous work on fermions at filling ν = 1/2, we map the low-energy sector onto a spin-1/2 chain. While the fermionic system may realize the gapless XY phase, we show that typically this does not happen for the bosonic system. Instead, both delta function and Coulomb interaction lead to gapped phases in the bosonic system, and in particular we identify a phase corresponding to the non-Abelian Moore–Read state. In the spin language, the Hamiltonian is dominated by a ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor interaction, which leads to a description consistent with the non-trivial degeneracies of the ground and excited states of this phase of matter. In addition we comment on the similarities and differences of the two systems mentioned above and fermions at ν = 5/2.
We investigate the ground state properties of a two-dimensional electron gas in the lowest Landau level using the Density Matrix Renormalization Group. The electron gas is confined to a cylinder with a strong magnetic field perpendicular to the surface. For a thin cylinder, the ground state is for generic filling factors a charge density wave state, however, at ν=1/2ν=1/2ν=1/2 a homogeneous and apparently gapless ground state is found and particle and hole excitations are studied.
While an ordinary Fermi sea is perturbatively robust to interactions, the paradigmatic composite-fermion (CF) Fermi sea arises as a nonperturbative consequence of emergent gauge fields in a system where there was no Fermi sea to begin with. A mean-field picture suggests two Fermi seas, of composite fermions made from electrons or holes in the lowest Landau level, which occupy different areas away from half filling and thus appear to represent distinct states. Using the microscopic theory of composite fermions, which satisfies particle-hole symmetry in the lowest Landau level to an excellent approximation, we show that the Fermi wave vectors at filling factors ν and 1-ν are equal when expressed in units of the inverse magnetic length, and are generally consistent with the experimental findings of Kamburov et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 196801 (2014)]. Our calculations suggest that the area of the CF Fermi sea may slightly violate the Luttinger area rule.