The most robust fractional quantum Hall states occur in the lowest Landau level at filling factors, 1/3 and 1/5. Such states are very well described by Laughlin's wave function. In this work, we have succeeded in calculating exactly the one-particle density function of the Laughlin states for some finite systems of particles in a disk geometry. The exact results we provide are not only important for the Laughlin states, but also for the general field of numerical calculations because they can serve as benchmarks to test the accuracy of various approaches, numerical schemes and computational methods used in studies of strongly correlated electronic systems.
The most robust fractional quantum Hall states occur in the lowest Landau level at filling factors, 1/3 and 1/5. Such states are very well described by Laughlin's wave function. In this work, we have succeeded in calculating exactly the one-particle density function of the Laughlin states for some finite systems of particles in a disk geometry. The exact results we provide are not only important for the Laughlin states, but also for the general field of numerical calculations because they can serve as benchmarks to test the accuracy of various approaches, numerical schemes and computational methods used in studies of strongly correlated electronic systems.
We obtain exact analytical expressions for the total energy per particle and related quantities corresponding to a finite quantum Hall system of electrons in a disk geometry when filling factor of the Landau level is one. Such exact results apply to finite systems of electrons with an arbitrary number of particles. The reported calculations for finite systems of electrons in a disk geometry complement earlier calculations for finite systems of electrons in a simpler spherical geometry. The results we provide can serve as benchmarks to gauge the accuracy of various theoretical approximations and numerical methods used to study the properties of strongly correlated many-body systems.
New trial wave functions corresponding to half filling quantum Hall states are proposed. These wave functions are constructed by first pairing up the quasielectrons of the 1/3 Laughlin quantum Hall state, with the same relative angular momentum for each pair, and then making the paired quasielectrons condense into a 1/4 Laughlin state. The quasiparticle excitations of the proposed wave functions carry ±1/4 of electron charge, and obey Abelian fractional statistics. In the spherical geometry, the total flux quanta Nϕ is shown to be related to the number of electrons N by Nϕ=2N−(5−q) with q being the relative angular momentum between the quasielectrons in each pair which takes values of non-negative even integers. The overlaps are calculated between the proposed trial wave functions, including the ground state, quasiexciton states, and quasihole states, and the exact states of the finite size systems at Nϕ=2N−3. The near unity overlaps are obtained in the lowest Landau level, while the moderate overlaps are obtained in the second Landau level. The relevance of the wave functions to the yet to be discovered fractional quantum Hall effect in the lowest Landau level, as well as the 5/2 quantum Hall effect is also discussed.
The single-particle spectral function for an incompressible fractional quantum Hall state in the presence of a scalar short-ranged attractive impurity potential is calculated via exact diagonalization within the spherical geometry. In contrast to the noninteracting case, where only a single bound state below the lowest Landau level forms, electron–electron interactions strongly renormalize the impurity potential, effectively giving it a finite range, which can support many quasi-bound states (long-lived resonances). Averaging the spectral weights of the quasi-bound states and extrapolating to the thermodynamic limit, for filling factor ν = 1/3 we find evidence consistent with localized fractionally charged e /3 quasi-particles. For ν = 2/5, the results are slightly more ambiguous, due to finite size effects and possible bunching of Laughlin-quasi-particles.
We introduce one-dimensional lattice models with exact matrix-product ground states describing the fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states in Laughlin series (given by filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/q$) on torus geometry. Surprisingly, the exactly solvable Hamiltonian has the same mathematical structure as that of the pseudopotential for the Laughlin wave function, and naturally derives the general properties of the Laughlin wave function such as the Z2 properties of the FQH states and the fermion-boson relation. The obtained exact ground states have high overlaps with the Laughlin states and well describe their properties. Using the matrix product method, density functions and correlation functions are calculated analytically. Especially, obtained entanglement spectra reflect gapless edge states as was discussed by Li and Haldane.
The fractional quantum Hall effect was experimentally discovered in 1982. It was observed that the Hall conductivity σyx of a two-dimensional electron system is quantized, σyx=e2/3h, in the vicinity of the Landau level filling factor ν=1/3. In 1983, Laughlin proposed a trial many-body wave function, which he claimed described a “new state of matter”—a homogeneous incompressible liquid with fractionally charged quasiparticles. Here, I develop an exact diagonalization theory that allows one to calculate the energy and other physical properties of the ground and excited states of a system of N two-dimensional Coulomb interacting electrons in a strong magnetic field. I analyze the energies, electron densities, and other physical properties of the systems with N≤7 electrons continuously as a function of magnetic field in the range 1/4≲ν<1. The results show that both the ground and excited states of the system resemble a sliding Wigner crystal whose parameters are influenced by the magnetic field. Energy gaps in the many-particle spectra appear and disappear as the magnetic field changes. I also calculate the physical properties of the ν=1/3 Laughlin state for N≤8 and compare the results with the exact ones. This comparison, as well as an analysis of some other statements published in the literature, show that the Laughlin state and its fractionally charged excitations do not describe the physical reality, neither at small N nor in the thermodynamic limit. The results obtained shed new light on the nature of the ground and excited states in the fractional quantum Hall effect.
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.