The phase diagrams and phase transitions of a typical bilayer fractional quantum Hall (QH) system with filling factor ν = 2/3 at the layer balanced point are investigated theoretically by finite size exact-diagonalization calculations and an exactly solvable model. We find some basic features essentially different from the bilayer integer QH systems at ν = 2, reflecting the special characteristics of the fractional QH systems. The degeneracy of the ground states occurs depending on the difference between intralayer and interlayer Coulomb energies, when interlayer tunneling energy (ΔSAS) gets close to zero. The continuous transitions of the finite size systems between the spin-polarized and spin-unpolarized phases are determined by the competition between the Zeeman energy (ΔZ) and the electron Coulomb energy, and are almost not affected by ΔSAS.
The phase diagrams and phase transitions of a typical bilayer fractional quantum Hall (QH) system with filling factor ν = 2/3 at the layer balanced point are investigated theoretically by finite size exact-diagonalization calculations and an exactly solvable model. We find some basic features essentially different from the bilayer integer QH systems at ν = 2, reflecting the special characteristics of the fractional QH systems. The degeneracy of the ground states occurs depending on the difference between intralayer and interlayer Coulomb energies, when interlayer tunneling energy (ΔSAS) gets close to zero. The continuous transitions of the finite size systems between the spin-polarized and spin-unpolarized phases are determined by the competition between the Zeeman energy (ΔZ) and the electron Coulomb energy, and are almost not affected by ΔSAS.
We present the quantitative phase diagram of the bilayer bosonic fractional quantum Hall system on the torus geometry at total filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}=1$ in the lowest Landau level. We consider short-range interactions within and between the two layers, as well as the interlayer tunneling. In the fully polarized regime, we provide an updated detailed numerical analysis to establish the presence of the Moore-Read phase of both even and odd numbers of particles. In the actual bilayer situation, we find that both interlayer interactions and tunneling can provide the physical mechanism necessary for the low-energy physics to be driven by the fully polarized regime, thus leading to the emergence of the Moore-Read phase. Interlayer interactions favor a ferromagnetic phase when the system is SU(2) symmetric, while the interlayer tunneling acts as a Zeeman field polarizing the system. Besides the Moore-Read phase, the (220) Halperin state and the coupled Moore-Read state are also realized in this model. We study their stability against each other.
We perform exact diagonalization studies for fractional quantum Hall states at filling factor 4/5 in a bilayer system, on a torus with various aspect ratios and angles. We find that in the absence of tunneling, two weakly coupled 2/5 layers undergo a phase transition into an interlayer-correlated regime, which is also Abelian with the fivefold degeneracy on the torus. In the limit of zero layer separation, this phase becomes a singlet in the pseudospin variable describing the layer degree of freedom. By studying the Chern-number matrix, we show that the K matrix describing the interlayer-correlated regime requires a matrix dimension larger than two and this regime is in particular not described by a Halperin state. A detailed analysis of possible $4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}4\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}K$ matrices having the requisite symmetries and quantum numbers shows that there is only one equivalence class of such matrices. A model wave function representing this universality class is constructed. The role of separate particle number conservation in both layers is discussed, and it is argued that this additional symmetry allows for the further distinction of two different symmetry-protected Abelian phases in the interlayer correlated regime. Interlayer tunneling breaks this symmetry and can drive the system into a single-layer regime when strong enough. A qualitative phase diagram in the tunneling-layer separation parameter space is proposed based on our numerical results.
There are several possible theoretically allowed non-Abelian fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states that could potentially be realized in one- and two-component FQH systems at total filling fraction $\ensuremath{\nu}=n+2/3$, for integer n. Some of these states even possess quasiparticles with non-Abelian statistics that are powerful enough for universal topological quantum computation, and are thus of particular interest. Here we initiate a systematic numerical study, using both exact diagonalization and variational Monte Carlo, to investigate the phase diagram of FQH systems at total filling fraction $\ensuremath{\nu}=n+2/3$, including in particular the possibility of the non-Abelian Z4 parafermion state. In $\ensuremath{\nu}=2/3$ bilayers we determine the phase diagram as a function of interlayer tunneling and repulsion, finding only three competing Abelian states, without the Z4 state. On the other hand, in single-component systems at $\ensuremath{\nu}=8/3$, we find that the Z4 parafermion state has significantly higher overlap with the exact ground state than the Laughlin state, together with a larger gap, suggesting that the experimentally observed $\ensuremath{\nu}=8/3$ state may be non-Abelian. Our results from the two complementary numerical techniques agree well with each other qualitatively.
We study continuous quantum phase transitions that can occur in bilayer fractional quantum Hall (FQH) systems as the interlayer tunneling and interlayer repulsion are tuned. We introduce a slave-particle gauge theory description of a series of continuous transitions from the (ppq) Abelian bilayer states to a set of non-Abelian FQH states, which we dub orbifold FQH states, of which the Z4 parafermion (Read-Rezayi) state is a special case. This provides an example in which Z2 electron fractionalization leads to non-Abelian topological phases. The naive ``ideal'' wave functions and ideal Hamiltonians associated with these orbifold states do not in general correspond to incompressible phases but, instead, lie at a nearby critical point. We discuss this unusual situation from the perspective of the pattern-of-zeros/vertex algebra frameworks and discuss implications for the conceptual foundations of these approaches. Due to the proximity in the phase diagram of these non-Abelian states to the (ppq) bilayer states, they may be experimentally relevant, both as candidates for describing the plateaus in single-layer systems at filling fractions 8/3 and 12/5 and as a way to tune to non-Abelian states in double-layer or wide quantum wells.
We study the phase diagram of quantum Hall bilayer systems with total filing ν_{T}=1/2+1/2 of the lowest Landau level as a function of layer distances d. Based on numerical exact diagonalization calculations, we obtain three distinct phases, including an exciton superfluid phase with spontaneous interlayer coherence at small d, a composite Fermi liquid at large d, and an intermediate phase for 1.1<d/l_{B}<1.8 (l_{B} is the magnetic length). The transition from the exciton superfluid to the intermediate phase is identified by (i) a dramatic change in the Berry curvature of the ground state under twisted boundary conditions on the two layers and (ii) an energy level crossing of the first excited state. The transition from the intermediate phase to the composite Fermi liquid is identified by the vanishing of the exciton superfluid stiffness. Furthermore, from our finite-size study, the energy cost of transferring one electron between the layers shows an even-odd effect and possibly extrapolates to a finite value in the thermodynamic limit, indicating the enhanced intralayer correlation. Our identification of an intermediate phase and its distinctive features shed new light on the theoretical understanding of the quantum Hall bilayer system at total filling ν_{T}=1.
We study phase transitions in bilayer and trilayer bosonic quantum Hall systems. In the absence of interlayer tunneling and interaction, each layer is chosen to have filling factor ν=1/2 or 1 to realize the Laughlin state or the Moore-Read state. By tuning interlayer tunneling and/or interaction, multiple phases can be generated. In the absence of interlayer interaction, three phase transitions appear when interlayer tunneling becomes sufficiently strong: (1) from two decoupled ν=1/2 Laughlin states to the Moore-Read state in bilayer systems; (2) from one ν=1/2 Laughlin state plus one ν=1 Moore-Read state to the Read-Rezayi Z3 state in bilayer systems; (3) from three decoupled ν=1/2 Laughlin states to the Read-Rezayi Z3 state in trilayer systems. Numerical calculations suggest that these transitions are third-order ones. We propose non-Abelian Chern-Simons-Higgs theory to describe them. If both interlayer tunneling and interaction are present, one-component or multi-component composite fermion liquids and Jain states can be realized. This leads to intricate phase diagrams that host multiple phase transitions and possibly exotic critical points.