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A Novel Projection: Towards a Deeper Understanding of Mathematical Structures in the Composite Fermion Formalism

Knut Halvor Helland

Published Jan 1, 2018• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Composite fermion (CF) wave functions are used to describe both a two dimensional electron gas in a strong magnetic field (the quantum Hall effect system) and rotating two dimensional atomic gases that can be either bosons or fermions. In this thesis a new method for projecting fermionic CF wave functions (here called method 3) to the lowest Landau level is investigated. The new projection is based on attaching a Jastrow factor to a bosonic CF wave function projected in the standard way. This will be compared to two other projection methods: method 1 or Girvin-Jach projection and method 2 or Jain-Kamilla projection. I compare the minimal cyclotron energy compact CF ground state candidates for the ∇²δ interaction both to each other and to the exact ground state found by numerical diagonalization for up to 8 particles. The conclusion is that the CF candidates typically are good approximations of the exact ground state, and that method 3 is almost as good as the other two at this. An important motivation for method 3 is that it preserves linear dependencies from the bosonic states. The puzzle of linear dependencies is a part of CF theory that is not properly understood. Certain important results for low angular momentum states have been found for the bosonic case. Since method 3 works quite well in the cases tested here some of these results can be imported to the fermionic case. I have compared the linear dependencies among minimal cyclotron energy compact states for all three projection methods. If approximate linear dependencies are considered as proper linear dependencies then for all tested cases the same linear dependencies hold for all three projection methods, up to slightly different coefficients.

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Composite fermion basis for two-component Bose gases

Ola Liabøtrø, Marius Meyer

Despite its success, the composite fermion (CF) construction possesses some mathematical features that have not been fully understood until recently. In particular, this construction is known to produce wave functions that are not necessarily orthogonal, or even linearly independent, after projection to the lowest Landau level. While this is usually not a problem in practice in the quantum Hall regime, we have previously shown that it presents a technical challenge for rotating Bose gases with low angular momenta. These are systems where the CF approach yields surprisingly good approximations to the exact eigenstates of weak short-range interactions, and so solving the problem of linearly dependent wave functions is of interest. It can also be useful for studying higher bands of fermionic quantum Hall states. Here we present several ways of constructing a basis for the space of so-called ``simple'' CF states for two-component rotating Bose gases in the lowest Landau level, and prove that they all give sets of linearly independent wave functions that span the space. Using this basis, we study the structure of the lowest-lying state using so-called restricted wave functions. We also examine the scaling of the overlap between the exact and CF wave functions at the maximal possible angular momentum for simple states.

arXiv:1701.04278•Physical Review A•Mar 30, 2017•2 citations

Linear dependencies between composite fermion states

M L Meyer, O Liabøtrø, S Viefers

Abstract The formalism of composite fermions (CFs) has been one of the most prominent and successful approaches to describing the fractional quantum Hall effect, in terms of trial many-body wave functions. Testing the accuracy of the latter typically involves rather heavy numerical comparison to exact diagonalization results. Thus, optimizing computational efficiency has been an important technical issue in this field. One generic (and not yet fully understood) property of the CF approach is that it tends to overcount the number of linearly independent candidate states for fixed sets of quantum numbers. Technically speaking, CF Slater determinants that are orthogonal before projection to the lowest Landau level, may lead to wave functions that are identical, or possess linear dependencies, after projection. This leads to unnecessary computations, and has been pointed out in the literature both for fermionic and bosonic systems. We here present a systematic approach that enables us to reveal all linear dependencies between bosonic compact states in the lowest CF ‘cyclotron energy’ sub-band, and almost all dependencies in higher sub-bands, at the level of the CF Slater determinants, i.e. before projection, which implies a major computational simplification. Our approach is introduced for so-called simple states of two-species rotating bosons, and then generalized to generic compact bosonic states, both one- and two-species. Some perspectives also apply to fermionic systems. The identities and linear dependencies we find, are analytically exact for ‘brute force’ projection in the disk geometry.

arXiv:1507.04099•Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical•Sep 7, 2016•5 citations

Composite fermions on a torus

Songyang Pu, Ying-Hai Wu, Jainendra K. Jain

We achieve an explicit construction of the lowest Landau level (LLL) projected wave functions for composite fermions in the periodic (torus) geometry. To this end, we first demonstrate how the vortex attachment of the composite fermion (CF) theory can be accomplished in the torus geometry to produce the ``unprojected'' wave functions satisfying the correct (quasi)periodic boundary conditions. We then consider two methods for projecting these wave functions into the LLL. The direct projection produces valid wave functions but can be implemented only for very small systems. The more powerful and more useful projection method of Jain and Kamilla fails in the torus geometry because it does not preserve the periodic boundary conditions and thus takes us out of the original Hilbert space. We have succeeded in constructing a modified projection method that is consistent with both the periodic boundary conditions and the general structure of the CF theory. This method is valid for a large class of states of composite fermions, called ``proper states,'' which includes the incompressible ground states at electron filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=\frac{n}{2pn+1}$, their charged and neutral excitations, and also the quasidegenerate ground states at arbitrary filling factors of the form $\ensuremath{\nu}=\frac{{\ensuremath{\nu}}^{*}}{2p{\ensuremath{\nu}}^{*}+1}$, where $n$ and $p$ are integers and ${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{*}$ is the CF filling factor. Comparison with exact results known for small systems for the ground and excited states at filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/3$, 2/5, and 3/7 demonstrates our LLL-projected wave functions to be extremely accurate representations of the actual Coulomb eigenstates. Our construction enables the study of large systems of composite fermions on the torus, thereby opening the possibility of investigating numerous interesting questions and phenomena.

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Real-space entanglement spectra of lowest Landau level projected fractional quantum Hall states using Monte Carlo methods

Abhishek Anand, G. J. Sreejith

Real-space entanglement spectrum (RSES) of a quantum Hall (QH) wave function gives a natural route to infer the nature of its edge excitations. Computation of RSES becomes expensive with increase in number of particles and number of included Landau levels (LL). RSES can be efficiently computed using Monte Carlo (MC) methods for trial states that can be written as products of determinants such as the composite fermion (CF) and parton states. This computational efficiency applies also to the RSES of lowest Landau level (LLL) projected CF and parton states, however, LLL projection to be used here requires approximations that generalize the Jain Kamilla (JK) projection. This work is a careful study of how this approximation should be done. We identify the approximation that is closest in spirit to JK projection, and perform tests of the approximations involved in the projection by comparing the MC results with the RSES obtained from computationally expensive but exact methods. We present the techniques and use them to calculate exact RSES of the exact LLL projected bosonic Jain $2/3$ state in bipartition of systems of sizes up to $N=24$ on the sphere. For the lowest few angular momentum sectors of the RSES, we present evidence to show that MC results closely match the exact spectra. We also compare other plausible projection schemes. We also calculate the exact RSES of the unprojected fermionic Jain $2/5$ state obtained from exact diagonalization of the Trugman-Kivelson Hamiltonian in the two lowest LLs on the sphere. By comparing with the RSES of the unprojected $2/5$ state from Monte Carlo methods, we show that the latter is practically exact.

arXiv:2210.11514•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Feb 3, 2023•2 citations

Emergent Gauge Field in Composite-Fermion Metals: A Large-Scale Microscopic Study

Amogh Anakru, Mytraya Gattu, Ajit Coimbatore Balram +4 more

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.

arXiv:2509.07151•Physical Review Letters•Nov 24, 2025•2 citations

Composite fermion theory: A microscopic derivation without Landau level projection

Bo Yang

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.

arXiv:2207.12418•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Dec 16, 2022•6 citations
Composite fermion (CF) wave functions are used to describe both a two dimensional electron gas in a strong magnetic field (the quantum Hall effect system) and rotating two dimensional atomic gases that can be either bosons or fermions. In this thesis a new method for projecting fermionic CF wave functions (here called method 3) to the lowest Landau level is investigated. The new projection is based on attaching a Jastrow factor to a bosonic CF wave function projected in the standard way. This will be compared to two other projection methods: method 1 or Girvin-Jach projection and method 2 or Jain-Kamilla projection. I compare the minimal cyclotron energy compact CF ground state candidates for the ∇²δ interaction both to each other and to the exact ground state found by numerical diagonalization for up to 8 particles. The conclusion is that the CF candidates typically are good approximations of the exact ground state, and that method 3 is almost as good as the other two at this. An important motivation for method 3 is that it preserves linear dependencies from the bosonic states. The puzzle of linear dependencies is a part of CF theory that is not properly understood. Certain important results for low angular momentum states have been found for the bosonic case. Since method 3 works quite well in the cases tested here some of these results can be imported to the fermionic case. I have compared the linear dependencies among minimal cyclotron energy compact states for all three projection methods. If approximate linear dependencies are considered as proper linear dependencies then for all tested cases the same linear dependencies hold for all three projection methods, up to slightly different coefficients.
Despite its success, the composite fermion (CF) construction possesses some mathematical features that have not been fully understood until recently. In particular, this construction is known to produce wave functions that are not necessarily orthogonal, or even linearly independent, after projection to the lowest Landau level. While this is usually not a problem in practice in the quantum Hall regime, we have previously shown that it presents a technical challenge for rotating Bose gases with low angular momenta. These are systems where the CF approach yields surprisingly good approximations to the exact eigenstates of weak short-range interactions, and so solving the problem of linearly dependent wave functions is of interest. It can also be useful for studying higher bands of fermionic quantum Hall states. Here we present several ways of constructing a basis for the space of so-called ``simple'' CF states for two-component rotating Bose gases in the lowest Landau level, and prove that they all give sets of linearly independent wave functions that span the space. Using this basis, we study the structure of the lowest-lying state using so-called restricted wave functions. We also examine the scaling of the overlap between the exact and CF wave functions at the maximal possible angular momentum for simple states.
Abstract The formalism of composite fermions (CFs) has been one of the most prominent and successful approaches to describing the fractional quantum Hall effect, in terms of trial many-body wave functions. Testing the accuracy of the latter typically involves rather heavy numerical comparison to exact diagonalization results. Thus, optimizing computational efficiency has been an important technical issue in this field. One generic (and not yet fully understood) property of the CF approach is that it tends to overcount the number of linearly independent candidate states for fixed sets of quantum numbers. Technically speaking, CF Slater determinants that are orthogonal before projection to the lowest Landau level, may lead to wave functions that are identical, or possess linear dependencies, after projection. This leads to unnecessary computations, and has been pointed out in the literature both for fermionic and bosonic systems. We here present a systematic approach that enables us to reveal all linear dependencies between bosonic compact states in the lowest CF ‘cyclotron energy’ sub-band, and almost all dependencies in higher sub-bands, at the level of the CF Slater determinants, i.e. before projection, which implies a major computational simplification. Our approach is introduced for so-called simple states of two-species rotating bosons, and then generalized to generic compact bosonic states, both one- and two-species. Some perspectives also apply to fermionic systems. The identities and linear dependencies we find, are analytically exact for ‘brute force’ projection in the disk geometry.
We achieve an explicit construction of the lowest Landau level (LLL) projected wave functions for composite fermions in the periodic (torus) geometry. To this end, we first demonstrate how the vortex attachment of the composite fermion (CF) theory can be accomplished in the torus geometry to produce the ``unprojected'' wave functions satisfying the correct (quasi)periodic boundary conditions. We then consider two methods for projecting these wave functions into the LLL. The direct projection produces valid wave functions but can be implemented only for very small systems. The more powerful and more useful projection method of Jain and Kamilla fails in the torus geometry because it does not preserve the periodic boundary conditions and thus takes us out of the original Hilbert space. We have succeeded in constructing a modified projection method that is consistent with both the periodic boundary conditions and the general structure of the CF theory. This method is valid for a large class of states of composite fermions, called ``proper states,'' which includes the incompressible ground states at electron filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=\frac{n}{2pn+1}$, their charged and neutral excitations, and also the quasidegenerate ground states at arbitrary filling factors of the form $\ensuremath{\nu}=\frac{{\ensuremath{\nu}}^{*}}{2p{\ensuremath{\nu}}^{*}+1}$, where nnn and ppp are integers and ${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{*}$ is the CF filling factor. Comparison with exact results known for small systems for the ground and excited states at filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/3$, 2/5, and 3/7 demonstrates our LLL-projected wave functions to be extremely accurate representations of the actual Coulomb eigenstates. Our construction enables the study of large systems of composite fermions on the torus, thereby opening the possibility of investigating numerous interesting questions and phenomena.
Real-space entanglement spectrum (RSES) of a quantum Hall (QH) wave function gives a natural route to infer the nature of its edge excitations. Computation of RSES becomes expensive with increase in number of particles and number of included Landau levels (LL). RSES can be efficiently computed using Monte Carlo (MC) methods for trial states that can be written as products of determinants such as the composite fermion (CF) and parton states. This computational efficiency applies also to the RSES of lowest Landau level (LLL) projected CF and parton states, however, LLL projection to be used here requires approximations that generalize the Jain Kamilla (JK) projection. This work is a careful study of how this approximation should be done. We identify the approximation that is closest in spirit to JK projection, and perform tests of the approximations involved in the projection by comparing the MC results with the RSES obtained from computationally expensive but exact methods. We present the techniques and use them to calculate exact RSES of the exact LLL projected bosonic Jain 2/32/32/3 state in bipartition of systems of sizes up to N=24N=24N=24 on the sphere. For the lowest few angular momentum sectors of the RSES, we present evidence to show that MC results closely match the exact spectra. We also compare other plausible projection schemes. We also calculate the exact RSES of the unprojected fermionic Jain 2/52/52/5 state obtained from exact diagonalization of the Trugman-Kivelson Hamiltonian in the two lowest LLs on the sphere. By comparing with the RSES of the unprojected 2/52/52/5 state from Monte Carlo methods, we show that the latter is practically exact.
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.
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.