Condensed Matter Theory

Abstract:

We develop a theoretical description of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer built from integer quantum Hall edge states, with an emphasis on how electron-electron interactions produce decoherence. We calculate the visibility of interference fringes and noise power, as a function of bias voltage and of temperature. Interactions are treated exactly, by using bosonization and considering edge states that are only weakly coupled via tunneling at the interferometer beam-splitters. In this weak-tunneling limit, we show that the bias-dependence of Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in source-drain conductance and noise power provides a direct measure of the one-electron correlation function for an isolated quantum Hall edge state. We find the asymptotic form of this correlation function for systems with either short-range interactions or unscreened Coulomb interactions, extracting a dephasing length $\ell_{\phi}$ that varies with temperature $T$ as $\ell_{\phi} \propto T^{-3}$ in the first case and as $\ell_{\phi} \propto T^{-1} \ln^2(T)$ in the second case.

Abstract:

We construct a wave function, generalizing the well-known Moore-Read Pfaffian, that describes spinless electrons at filling fraction ν=2/5 (or bosons at filling fraction ν=2/3) as the ground state of a very simple three body potential. We find, analogous to the Pfaffian, that when quasiholes are added there is a ground state degeneracy which can be identified as zero modes of the quasiholes. The zero modes are identified as having semionic statistics. We write this wave function as a correlator of the Virasoro minimal model conformal field theory M (5,3). Since this model is nonunitary, we conclude that this wave function is likely a quantum critical state. Nonetheless, we find that the overlaps of this wave function with exact diagonalizations in the lowest and first excited Landau level are very high, suggesting that this wave function may have experimental relevance for some transition that may occur in that regime. © 2007 The American Physical Society.

Abstract:

Certain well known quantum Hall states-including the Laughlin states, the Moore-Read Pfaffian, and the Read-Rezayi Parafermion states-can be defined as the unique lowest degree symmetric analytic function that vanishes as at least p powers as some number (g+1) of particles approach the same point. Analogously, these same quantum Hall states can be generated as the exact highest density zero energy state of simple angular momentum projection operators. Following this theme we determine the highest density zero energy state for many other values of p and g. © 2007 The American Physical Society.