No Arabic abstract
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.
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.
We theoretically study the quantum Hall effect (QHE) in graphene with an ac electric field. Based on the tight-binding model, the structure of the half-integer Hall plateaus at $sigma_{xy} = pm(n + 1/2)4e^2/h$ ($n$ is an integer) gets qualitatively changed with the addition of new integer Hall plateaus at $sigma_{xy} = pm n(4e^2/h)$ starting from the edges of the band center regime towards the band center with an increasing ac field. Beyond a critical field strength, a Hall plateau with $sigma_{xy} = 0$ can be realized at the band center, hence restoring fully a conventional integer QHE with particle-hole symmetry. Within a low-energy Hamiltonian for Dirac cones merging, we show a very good agreement with the tight-binding calculations for the Hall plateau transitions. We also obtain the band structure for driven graphene ribbons to provide a further understanding on the appearance of the new Hall plateaus, showing a trivial insulator behavior for the $sigma_{xy} = 0$ state. In the presence of disorder, we numerically study the disorder-induced destruction of the quantum Hall states in a finite driven sample and find that qualitative features known in the undriven disordered case are maintained.
By taking into account the possibility of all the intralayer as well as the interlayer current orderings, we derive an eight-band model for interacting electrons in bilayer graphene. With the numerical solution to the model, we show that only the current orderings between the same sublattice sites can exist within the range of the physical interacting strength. This result confirms our previous model of spin-polarized-current phase for the ground-state of interacting electrons in bilayer graphene that resolves a number of experimental puzzles.
Applying a unified approach, we study integer quantum Hall effect (IQHE) and fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) in the Hofstadter model with short range interaction between fermions. An effective field, that takes into account the interaction, is determined by both the amplitude and phase. Its amplitude is proportional to the interaction strength, the phase corresponds to the minimum energy. In fact the problem is reduced to the Harper equation with two different scales: the first is a magnetic scale (cell size corresponding to a unit quantum magnetic flux), the second scale (determines the inhomogeneity of the effective field) forms the steady fine structure of the Hofstadter spectrum and leads to the realization of fractional quantum Hall states. In a sample of finite sizes with open boundary conditions, the fine structure of the Hofstadter spectrum also includes the fine structure of the edge chiral modes. The subbands in a fine structure of the Hofstadter band (HB) are separated extremely small quasigaps. The Chern number of a topological HB is conserved during the formation of its fine structure. Edge modes are formed into HB, they connect the nearest-neighbor subbands and determine the fractional conductance for the fractional filling at the Fermi energies corresponding to these quasigaps.
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.