No Arabic abstract
A simple physical realization of an integer quantum Hall state of interacting two dimensional bosons is provided. This is an example of a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase which is a generalization of the concept of topological insulators to systems of interacting bosons or fermions. Universal physical properties of the boson integer quantum Hall state are described and shown to correspond to those expected from general classifications of SPT phases.
By taking into account the charge and spin orderings and the exchange interactions between all the Landau levels, we investigate the integer quantum Hall effect of electrons in graphene using the mean-field theory. At the fillings $ u = 4n+2$ with $n = 0, 1, cdots$, the system is in the high-symmetry state with the Landau levels four-fold degenerated. We show that with doping the degenerated lowest empty levels can be sequentially filled one level by one level, the filled level is lower than the empty ones because of the symmetry breaking. This result explains the step $Delta u$ = 1 in the integer quantized Hall conductivity of the experimental observations. We also present in the supplemental material a high efficient method for dealing with huge number of the Coulomb couplings between all the levels.
We study equilibration of quantum Hall edge states at integer filling factors, motivated by experiments involving point contacts at finite bias. Idealising the experimental situation and extending the notion of a quantum quench, we consider time evolution from an initial non-equilibrium state in a translationally invariant system. We show that electron interactions bring the system into a steady state at long times. Strikingly, this state is not a thermal one: its properties depend on the full functional form of the initial electron distribution, and not simply on the initial energy density. Further, we demonstrate that measurements of the tunneling density of states at long times can yield either an over-estimate or an under-estimate of the energy density, depending on details of the analysis, and discuss this finding in connection with an apparent energy loss observed experimentally. More specifically, we treat several separate cases: for filling factor u=1 we discuss relaxation due to finite-range or Coulomb interactions between electrons in the same channel, and for filling factor u=2 we examine relaxation due to contact interactions between electrons in different channels. In both instances we calculate analytically the long-time asymptotics of the single-particle correlation function. These results are supported by an exact solution at arbitrary time for the problem of relaxation at u=2 from an initial state in which the two channels have electron distributions that are both thermal but with unequal temperatures, for which we also examine the tunneling density of states.
We study the quantum entanglement structure of integer quantum Hall states via the reduced density matrix of spatial subregions. In particular, we examine the eigenstates, spectrum and entanglement entropy (EE) of the density matrix for various ground and excited states, with or without mass anisotropy. We focus on an important class of regions that contain sharp corners or cusps, leading to a geometric angle-dependent contribution to the EE. We unravel surprising relations by comparing this corner term at different fillings. We further find that the corner term, when properly normalized, has nearly the same angle dependence as numerous conformal field theories (CFTs) in two spatial dimensions, which hints at a broader structure. In fact, the Hall corner term is found to obey bounds that were previously obtained for CFTs. In addition, the low-lying entanglement spectrum and the corresponding eigenfunctions reveal excitations localized near corners. Finally, we present an outlook for fractional quantum Hall states.
The quantum Hall effect (QHE) in two-dimensional (2D) electron gases, which is one of the most striking phenomena in condensed matter physics, involves the topologically protected dissipationless charge current flow along the edges of the sample. Integer or fractional electrical conductance are measured in units of $e^2/2pihbar$, which is associated with edge currents of electrons or quasiparticles with fractional charges, respectively. Here we discover a novel type of quantization of the Hall effect in an insulating 2D quantum magnet. In $alpha$-RuCl$_3$ with dominant Kitaev interaction on 2D honeycomb lattice, the application of a parallel magnetic field destroys the long-range magnetic order, leading to a field-induced quantum spin liquid (QSL) ground state with massive entanglement of local spins. In the low-temperature regime of the QSL state, we report that the 2D thermal Hall conductance $kappa_{xy}^{2D}$ reaches a quantum plateau as a function of applied magnetic field. $kappa_{xy}^{2D}/T$ attains a quantization value of $(pi/12)(k_B^2/hbar)$, which is exactly half of $kappa_{xy}^{2D}/T$ in the integer QHE. This half-integer thermal Hall conductance observed in a bulk material is a direct signature of topologically protected chiral edge currents of charge neutral Majorana fermions, particles that are their own antiparticles, which possess half degrees of freedom of conventional fermions. These signatures demonstrate the fractionalization of spins into itinerant Majorana fermions and $Z_2$ fluxes predicted in a Kitaev QSL. Above a critical magnetic field, the quantization disappears and $kappa_{xy}^{2D}/T$ goes to zero rapidly, indicating a topological quantum phase transition between the states with and without chiral Majorana edge modes. Emergent Majorana fermions in a quantum magnet are expected to have a major impact on strongly correlated topological quantum matter.
We study the spectral properties of infinite rectangular quantum graphs in the presence of a magnetic field. We study how these properties are affected when three-dimensionality is considered, in particular, the chaological properties. We then establish the quantization of the Hall transverse conductivity for these systems. This quantization is obtained by relating the transverse conductivity to topological invariants. The different integer values of the Hall conductivity are explicitly computed for an anisotropic diffusion system which leads to fractal phase diagrams.