Laughlin's quantum Hall wave function is obtained as an exact ground state of an N-particle Hamiltonian, in which the electrons themselves are coupled to the Chern-Simons field. The proof requires quantum field-theoretic methods in the Schr\"odinger picture, and clearly exhibits the relation to conformal field theory since the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov connection shows up and the Laughlin ground state is recognized as a conformal block. A refined version of this approach can be applied for toroidal boundary conditions, i.e., the electrons are confined to the physical interior of the Hall sample. The result turns out to be a nontrivial modification of the p-fold degenerate Haldane-Rezayi wave function. Furthermore, it is shown that the degeneracy of the ground state is accounted for by the quantum group
Uq(su2) with deformation parameter $q=\mathrm{exp}(2\ensuremath{\pi}i/p)$ and p odd; put differently, the possible quantum numbers p of the quantum Hall effect, determining the filling fractions $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/p,$ can be explained by an underlying quantum symmetry.
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.
We consider spin-polarized electrons in a single Landau level on a torus. The quantum Hall problem is mapped onto a one-dimensional lattice model with lattice constant $2\ensuremath{\pi}/{L}_{1}$, where
L1 is a circumference of the torus (in units of the magnetic length). In the Tao-Thouless limit ${L}_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$, the interacting many-electron problem is exactly diagonalized at any rational filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}=p/q\ensuremath{\le}1$. For odd
q, the ground state has the same qualitative properties as a bulk $({L}_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty})$ quantum Hall hierarchy state and the lowest-energy quasiparticle excitations have the same fractional charges as in the bulk. These states are the ${L}_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$ limits of the Laughlin and Jain wave functions for filling fractions where these exist. We argue that the exact solutions generically, for odd
q, are continuously connected to the two-dimensional bulk quantum Hall hierarchy states---i.e., that there is no phase transition as ${L}_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ for filling factors where such states can be observed. For even-denominator fractions, a phase transition occurs as
L1 increases. For $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/2$ this leads to the system being mapped onto a Luttinger liquid of neutral particles at small but finite
L1; this then develops continuously into the composite fermion wave function that is believed to describe the bulk $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/2$ system. The analysis generalizes to non-Abelian quantum Hall states.
A two-dimensional system of electrons with repulsive two-particle interaction is considered in a homogeneous magnetic field. Assuming the limit of high magnetic field the motion of the electrons is restricted to the lowest Landau level. We present quantum-mechanical wave functions for the many-particle system of N spin-polarized fermions on a parallelogram with periodic boundary conditions and with ${\mathit{N}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}}$ quanta of magnetic flux flowing through its area. These wave functions are generalizations of the Laughlin wave function to more general rational values of the occupation fraction \ensuremath{\nu}=N/${\mathit{N}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}}$. We divide the N electrons into n groups and assume Laughlin-Jastrow-type correlations for electrons within the same group, while electrons in different groups are correlated with a second Jastrow function. The corresponding wave functions exhibit a special structure that depends on \ensuremath{\nu} but is not affected by the interaction between the particles. Furthermore, we consider excited states with quasielectrons and quasiholes. Our theory leads to a unified view of the composite fermion theory of Jain and the hierarchy theory of Haldane, Laughlin, and Halperin. We present a qualitative argument why the fractions of Jain are observed preferably in the experiments.