Condensed Matter seminars

Geometry of "flux attachment" in the fractional quantum Hall effect

by Duncan Haldane (Princeton)

Europe/Stockholm
FB53 (this is the correct room!)

FB53 (this is the correct room!)

Description
Most of our theoretical understanding of the topologically-ordered fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states derives from the remarkable model wavefunctions discovered by Laughlin, which explicitly exhibit "flux attachment”. What has perhaps long been missing is a detailed understanding of why these wavefunctions work so well, and the energetics that causes "flux attachment" to occur in a partially-filled Landau level. I will describe a simple physical and geometrical analogy between the incompressible quantum liquid FQH states and quantum solids, in which the "composite boson", that forms by "flux attachment" and condenses, is the analog of the unit cell of the quantum solid, and how the apparently-competing "composite boson" and "composite fermion" pictures are related.