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arXiv:cond-mat/9602113 · Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Edge excitations of paired fractional quantum Hall states

Milica V. Milovanović, N. Read

Published May 15, 1996• 178 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The Hilbert spaces of the edge excitations of several ``paired'' fractional quantum Hall states, namely, the Pfaffian, Haldane-Rezayi, and 331 states, are constructed and the states at each angular momentum level are enumerated. The method is based on finding all the zero-energy states for those Hamiltonians for which each of these known ground states is the exact, unique, zero-energy eigenstate of lowest angular momentum in the disk geometry. For each state, we find that, in addition to the usual bosonic charge-fluctuation excitations, there are fermionic edge excitations. The wave functions for each case have a similar form, related to Slater determinants, and the edge states satisfy a ``projection rule,'' that the parity of the number of fermions added to the edge equals the parity of the charge added. The edge states can be built out of quantum fields that describe the fermions, in addition to the usual scalar bosons (or Luttinger liquids) that describe the charge fluctuations. The fermionic fields in the Pfaffian and 331 cases are a noninteracting Majorana (i.e., real Dirac) and Dirac field, respectively. For the Haldane-Rezayi state, the field is an anticommuting scalar. For this system, we exhibit a chiral Lagrangian that has manifest SU(2) symmetry, but breaks Lorentz invariance, because of the breakdown of the spin-statistics connection implied by the scalar nature of the field and the positive-definite norm on the Hilbert space. Finally, we consider systems on a cylinder, where the fluid has two edges, and construct the sectors of zero-energy states, discuss the projection rules for combining states at the two edges, and calculate the partition function for each edge excitation system at finite temperature in the thermodynamic limit. The corresponding theory for the hierarchy and its generalizations is also given. It is pointed out that the conformal field theories for the edge states are examples of orbifold constructions. Two appendixes contain technical details. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.53.13559

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The Hilbert spaces of the edge excitations of several paired'' fractional quantum Hall states, namely, the Pfaffian, Haldane-Rezayi, and 331 states, are constructed and the states at each angular momentum level are enumerated. The method is based on finding all the zero-energy states for those Hamiltonians for which each of these known ground states is the exact, unique, zero-energy eigenstate of lowest angular momentum in the disk geometry. For each state, we find that, in addition to the usual bosonic charge-fluctuation excitations, there are fermionic edge excitations. The wave functions for each case have a similar form, related to Slater determinants, and the edge states satisfy a projection rule,'' that the parity of the number of fermions added to the edge equals the parity of the charge added. The edge states can be built out of quantum fields that describe the fermions, in addition to the usual scalar bosons (or Luttinger liquids) that describe the charge fluctuations. The fermionic fields in the Pfaffian and 331 cases are a noninteracting Majorana (i.e., real Dirac) and Dirac field, respectively. For the Haldane-Rezayi state, the field is an anticommuting scalar. For this system, we exhibit a chiral Lagrangian that has manifest SU(2) symmetry, but breaks Lorentz invariance, because of the breakdown of the spin-statistics connection implied by the scalar nature of the field and the positive-definite norm on the Hilbert space. Finally, we consider systems on a cylinder, where the fluid has two edges, and construct the sectors of zero-energy states, discuss the projection rules for combining states at the two edges, and calculate the partition function for each edge excitation system at finite temperature in the thermodynamic limit. The corresponding theory for the hierarchy and its generalizations is also given. It is pointed out that the conformal field theories for the edge states are examples of orbifold constructions. Two appendixes contain technical details. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
The quasihole states of several paired states, the Pfaffian, Haldane-Rezayi, and 331 states, which under certain conditions may describe electrons at filling factor \ensuremath{\nu}=1/2 or 5/2, are studied analytically and numerically in the spherical geometry, for the Hamiltonians for which the ground state are known exactly. We also find all the ground states (without quasiparticles) for these systems in the toroidal geometry. In each case, a complete set of linearly independent functions that are energy eigenstates of zero energy is found explicitly. For fixed positions of the quasiholes, the number of linearly independent states is ${2}^{\mathit{n}\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1}$ for the Pfaffian, and ${2}^{2\mathit{n}\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}3}$ for the Haldane-Rezayi state; these degeneracies are needed if these systems are to possess non-Abelian statistics, and they agree with predictions based on conformal field theory. The dimensions of the spaces of states for each number of quasiholes agree with numerical results for moderate system sizes. The effects of tunneling and of the Zeeman term are discussed for the 331 and Haldane-Rezayi states, as well as the relation to Laughlin states of electron pairs. A model introduced by Ho, which was supposed to connect the 331 and Pfaffian states, is found to have the same degeneracies of zero-energy states as the 331 state, except at its Pfaffian point where it is much more highly degenerate than either the 331 or the Pfaffian. We introduce a modification of the model which has the degeneracies of the 331 state everywhere including the Pfaffian point; at the latter point, tunneling reduces the degeneracies to those of the Pfaffian state. An experimental difference is pointed out between the Laughlin states of electron pairs and the other paired states, in the current-voltage response when electrons tunnel into the edge. An appendix contains results for the permanent state, in which the zero modes can be occupied by composite bosons, rather than by composite fermions as in the other cases; the system is found to have an incipient instability toward a spin-polarized state. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
The fractional quantum Hall (FQH) effect plays a prominent role in the study of topological phases of matter and of strongly correlated electron systems in general. FQH systems have been demonstrated to show many interesting novel properties such as fractional charges, and are believed to harbor even more intriguing phenomena such as fractional statistics. However, there remain many interesting questions to be addressed in this regime. The work reported in this thesis aims to push the envelope of our understanding of the low-energy properties of FQH states using microscopic principles. In the first part of the thesis, we present a systematic perturbative approach to study excitations in the thin cylinder/torus limit of the quantum Hall states. The approach is applied to the Haldane-Rezayi and Gaffnian quantum Hall states, which are both expected to have gapless excitations in the usual two-dimensional thermodynamic limit. For the Haldane-Rezayi state, we confirm that gapless excitations are present also in the ``one-dimensional'' thermodynamic limit of an infinite thin cylinder, in agreement with earlier considerations based on the wave functions alone. In contrast, we identify the lowest excitations of the Gaffnian state in the thin cylinder limit, and conclude that they are gapped, using a combination of perturbative and numerical means. We discuss possible scenarios for the cross-over between the two-dimensional and the one-dimensional thermodynamic limit in this case. In the second part of the thesis, we study the low energy spectral properties of positive center-of-mass conserving two-body Hamiltonians as they arise in models of FQH states. Starting from the observation that positive many-body Hamiltonians must have ground state energies that increase monotonously in particle number, we explore what general additional constraints can be obtained for two-body interactions with "center-of-mass conservation" symmetry, both in the presence and absence of particle-hole symmetry. We find general bounds that constrain the evolution of the ground state energy with particle number, and in particular constrain the chemical potential at T=0. Special attention is given to Hamiltonians with zero modes, in which case similar bounds on the first excited state are also obtained, using a duality property. In this case, in particular an upper bound on the charge gap is also obtained. We further comment on center-of-mass and relative-decomposition in disk geometry within the framework of second quantization.
We consider spaces of trial wave functions for ground states and edge excitations in the fractional quantum Hall effect that can be obtained in various ways. In one way, functions are obtained by analyzing the entanglement of the ground-state wave function, partitioned into two parts. In another, functions are defined by the way in which they vanish as several coordinates approach the same value, or by a projection-operator Hamiltonian that enforces those conditions. In a third way, functions are given by conformal blocks from a conformal field theory (CFT). These different spaces of functions are closely related. The use of CFT methods permits an algebraic formulation to be given for all of them. In some cases, we can prove that there is a ground state, a Hamiltonian, and a CFT such that, for any number of particles, all of these spaces are the same. For such cases, this resolves several questions and conjectures: it gives a finite-size bulk-edge correspondence, and we can use the analysis of functions to construct a projection-operator Hamiltonian that produces those functions as zero-energy states. For a model related to the N=1\mathcal{N}=1N=1 superconformal algebra, the corresponding Hamiltonian imposes vanishing properties involving only three particles; for this we determine all the wave functions explicitly. We do the same for a sequence of models involving the M(3,p)M(3,p)M(3,p) Virasoro minimal models that has been considered previously, using results from the literature. We exhibit the Hamiltonians for the first few cases of these. The techniques we introduce can be applied in numerous examples other than those considered here.
Some fractional quantum Hall states observed in experiments may be described by first-quantized wavefunctions with special clustering properties such as the Moore-Read Pfaffian for filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}=5/2$. This wavefunction has been constructed by constructing correlation functions of a two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) involving a free boson and a Majorana fermion. By considering other CFTs many other clustered states have been proposed as candidate fractional quantum Hall states under appropriate circumstances. It is believed that the underlying CFT should be unitary if one wants to describe an incompressible, i.e., gapped liquid state. We show that by changing the way one derives the wavefunction from its parent CFT it is possible to obtain an incompressible candidate state when starting from a nonunitary parent. The construction mimics a global change in parameters in the phase space of the electron system. We explicit our construction in the case of the so-called Gaffnian state (a state for filling factor 2/5) and also for the Haldane-Rezayi state (a spin-singlet state at filling 1/2). We note that there are obstructions along this path in the case of the permanent spin-singlet state of Read and Rezayi which can be characterized as a robust gapless state.
We propose field theories for the bulk and edge of a quantum Hall state in the universality class of the Haldane-Rezayi wavefunction. The bulk theory is associated with the c = −2 conformal field theory. The topological properties of the state, such as the quasiparticle braiding statistics and ground state degeneracy on a torus, may be deduced from this conformal field theory. The 10-fold degeneracy on a torus is explained by the existence of a logarithmic operator in the c = −2 theory; this operator corresponds to a novel bulk excitation in the quantum Hall state. We argue that the edge theory is the c = 1 chiral Dirac fermion, which is related in a simple way to the c = −2 theory of the bulk. This theory is reformulated as a truncated version of a
We present microscopic, multiple Landau level, (frustration-free and positive semi-definite) parent Hamiltonians whose ground states, realizing different quantum Hall fluids, are parton-like and whose excitations display either Abelian or non-Abelian braiding statistics. We prove ground state energy monotonicity theorems for systems with different particle numbers in multiple Landau levels, demonstrate S-duality in the case of toroidal geometry, and establish complete sets of zero modes of special Hamiltonians stabilizing parton-like states, specifically at filling factor \nu=2/3 ν = 2 / 3 . The emergent Entangled Pauli Principle (EPP), introduced in [Phys. Rev. B 98, 161118(R) (2018)] and which defines the “DNA” of the quantum Hall fluid, is behind the exact determination of the topological characteristics of the fluid, including charge and braiding statistics of excitations, and effective edge theory descriptions. When the closed-shell condition is satisfied, the densest (i.e., the highest density and lowest total angular momentum) zero-energy mode is a unique parton state. We conjecture that parton-like states generally span the subspace of many-body wave functions with the two-body M M -clustering property within any given number of Landau levels, that is, wave functions with M M th-order coincidence plane zeroes and both holomorphic and anti-holomorphic dependence on variables. General arguments are supplemented by rigorous considerations for the M=3 M = 3 case of fermions in four Landau levels. For this case, we establish that the zero mode counting can be done by enumerating certain patterns consistent with an underlying EPP. We apply the coherent state approach of [Phys. Rev. X 1, 021015 (2011)] to show that the elementary (localized) bulk excitations are Fibonacci anyons. This demonstrates that the DNA associated with fractional quantum Hall states encodes all universal properties. Specifically, for parton-like states, we establish a link with tensor network structures of finite bond dimension that emerge via root level entanglement.