We study the consequences of the random mass, random scalar potential, and random vector potential on the line of fixed points between integer and/or fractional quantum Hall states and an insulator. This line of fixed points was first identified in a clean Dirac fermion system with both Chern-Simon coupling and Coulomb interaction [Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 5409 (1998)]. By performing a renormalization-group analysis in
1/N (N is the number of species of Dirac fermions) and the variances of three disorders ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{M},{\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{V},{\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{A},$ we find that ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{M}$ is irrelevant along this line, and both ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{A}$ and ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{V}$ are marginal. With the presence of all three disorders, the pure fixed line is unstable. Setting Chern-Simon interaction to zero, we find one nontrivial line of fixed points in the $({\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{A},w)$ plane with dynamic exponent
z=1 and continuously changing \ensuremath{\nu}; it is stable against small $({\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{M},{\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{V})$ in a small range of the line
1<w<1.31, therefore it may be relevant to integer quantum Hall transition. Setting ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{M}=0,$ we find a fixed plane with
z=1, the part of this plane with $\ensuremath{\nu}>1$ is stable against small ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{M},$ therefore it may be relevant to fractional quantum Hall transition. Although we do not find a generic fixed point with all the couplings nonvanishing, we prove that the theory is renormalizable to the order ${(1/N)}^{2},(1/N)\ensuremath{\Delta},{\ensuremath{\Delta}}^{2},$ and we explore the interesting processes which describe the interferences between the Chern-Simon interaction, the Coulomb interaction, and the three kinds of disorders.
We introduce and analyze a lattice model of anyons in a periodic potential and an external magnetic field, which exhibits a transition from a Mott insulator to a quantum Hall fluid. The transition is characterized by the anyon statistics \ensuremath{\alpha}, which can vary between fermions, \ensuremath{\alpha}=0, and bosons, \ensuremath{\alpha}=1. For bosons the transition is in the universality class of the classical three-dimensional XY model. Near the fermion limit, the transition is described by a massless 2+1 Dirac theory coupled to a Chern-Simons gauge field. Analytic calculations perturbative in \ensuremath{\alpha}, and also a large-N expansion, show that due to gauge fluctuations, the critical properties of the transition are dependent on the anyon statistics. Comparison with previous calculations at and near the boson limit, strongly suggest that our lattice model exhibits a fixed line of critical points, with universal critical properties that vary continuously and monotonically as one passes from fermions to bosons. Possible relevance to experiments on the transitions between plateaus in the fractional quantum Hall effect and the magnetic-field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition are briefly discussed.
We study the effects of the electron-electron interaction on the critical properties of the plateau transitions in the integer quantum Hall effect. We find the renormalization group dimension associated with short-range interactions to be $\ensuremath{-}0.66\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.04$. Thus the noninteracting fixed point (characterized
z=2 and $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\approx}2.3$) is stable. For the Coulomb interaction, we find the correlation effect is a marginal perturbation at a Hartree-Fock fixed point (
z=1, $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\approx}2.3$) by dimension counting. Further calculations are needed to determine its stability upon loop corrections.
We consider the influence of an external periodic potential on the fractional quantum Hall effect. For many electrons on a torus, we find that at finite system size
L the splitting of incompressible ground-state degeneracies by a weak external potential is proportional to $\mathrm{exp}(\ensuremath{-}L/\ensuremath{\xi}).$ We present numerical results consistent with a scenario in which \ensuremath{\xi} diverges at a continuous phase transition from fractional to integer quantum Hall states which occurs at a critical periodic potential strength.
We study the influence of short-range electron-electron interactions on scaling behavior near the integer quantum Hall plateau transitions. Short-range interactions are known to be irrelevant at the renormalization group fixed point which represents the transition in the noninteracting system. We find, nevertheless, that transport properties change discontinuously when interactions are introduced. Most importantly, in the thermodynamic limit the conductivity at finite temperature is zero without interactions, but nonzero in the presence of arbitrarily weak interactions. In addition, scaling as a function of frequency $\ensuremath{\omega}$ and temperature T is determined by the scaling variable $\ensuremath{\omega}{/T}^{p}$ (where p is the exponent for the temperature dependence of the inelastic scattering rate) and not by $\ensuremath{\omega}/T,$ as it would be at a conventional quantum phase transition described by an interacting fixed point. We express the inelastic exponent p and the thermal exponent
zT in terms of the scaling dimension $\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\alpha}<0$ of the interaction strength and the dynamical exponent z (which has the value
z=2), obtaining $p=1+2\ensuremath{\alpha}/z$ and
zT=2/p.We obtain integer and fractional quantum Hall crystals as ground states of a two-dimensional electron system subject to a strong perpendicular magnetic field and a periodic potential. For certain fractional states, we show that the Hall crystal can constitute an anyon crystal, with a periodic ordering of well-defined anyons. We find that the latter states can be stabilized at odd denominator Landau level filling fractions when Landau level mixing is sufficiently weak, and near half-filling of the underlying lattice. These phases are obtained from a mean-field analysis of an effective lattice model of bosons attached to an odd number of flux quanta, which transmutes their statistics to that of electrons. In boson coordinates, the Hall crystal is a supersolid: a superfluid with charge order. Under strong interactions, vortex-anti-vortex pairs spontaneously nucleate in the supersolid, realizing a crystalline state of anyons.