Spontaneous interlayer coherence in double-layer quantum Hall systems: Symmetry-breaking interactions, in-plane fields, and phase solitons

Hilbert Space Structure of the Low Energy Sector of U(N) Quantum Hall Ferromagnets and Their Classical Limit

Using the Lieb–Mattis ordering theorem of electronic energy levels, we identify the Hilbert space of the low energy sector of U(N) quantum Hall/Heisenberg ferromagnets at filling factor M for L Landau/lattice sites with the carrier space of irreducible representations of U(N) described by rectangular Young tableaux of M rows and L columns, and associated with Grassmannian phase spaces U(N)/U(M)×U(N−M). We embed this N-component fermion mixture in Fock space through a Schwinger–Jordan (boson and fermion) representation of U(N)-spin operators. We provide different realizations of basis vectors using Young diagrams, Gelfand–Tsetlin patterns and Fock states (for an electron/flux occupation number in the fermionic/bosonic representation). U(N)-spin operator matrix elements in the Gelfand–Tsetlin basis are explicitly given. Coherent state excitations above the ground state are computed and labeled by complex (N−M)×M matrix points Z on the Grassmannian phase space. They adopt the form of a U(N) displaced/rotated highest-weight vector, or a multinomial Bose–Einstein condensate in the flux occupation number representation. Replacing U(N)-spin operators by their expectation values in a Grassmannian coherent state allows for a semi-classical treatment of the low energy (long wavelength) U(N)-spin-wave coherent excitations (skyrmions) of U(N) quantum Hall ferromagnets in terms of Grasmannian nonlinear sigma models.

Quasiparticle Tunneling across an Exciton Condensate

The bulk properties of the bilayer quantum Hall state at total filling factor one have been intensively studied in experiment. Correlation induced phenomena such as Josephson-like tunneling and zero Hall resistance have been reported. In contrast, the edge of this bilayer state remains largely unexplored. Here, we address this edge physics by realizing quasiparticle tunneling across a quantum point contact. The tunneling manifests itself as a zero bias peak that grows with decreasing temperature. Its shape agrees quantitatively with the formula for weak quasiparticle tunneling frequently deployed in the fractional quantum Hall regime in single layer systems, consistent with theory. Interestingly, we extract a fractional charge of only a few percent of the free electron charge, which may be a signature of the theoretically predicted leakage between the chiral edge and the bulk mediated by gapless excitations.

Numerical Study of Quantum Hall Bilayers at Total Filling ν_{T}=1: A New Phase at Intermediate Layer Distances

We study the phase diagram of quantum Hall bilayer systems with total filing ν_{T}=1/2+1/2 of the lowest Landau level as a function of layer distances d. Based on numerical exact diagonalization calculations, we obtain three distinct phases, including an exciton superfluid phase with spontaneous interlayer coherence at small d, a composite Fermi liquid at large d, and an intermediate phase for 1.1<d/l_{B}<1.8 (l_{B} is the magnetic length). The transition from the exciton superfluid to the intermediate phase is identified by (i) a dramatic change in the Berry curvature of the ground state under twisted boundary conditions on the two layers and (ii) an energy level crossing of the first excited state. The transition from the intermediate phase to the composite Fermi liquid is identified by the vanishing of the exciton superfluid stiffness. Furthermore, from our finite-size study, the energy cost of transferring one electron between the layers shows an even-odd effect and possibly extrapolates to a finite value in the thermodynamic limit, indicating the enhanced intralayer correlation. Our identification of an intermediate phase and its distinctive features shed new light on the theoretical understanding of the quantum Hall bilayer system at total filling ν_{T}=1.

Confinement-deconfinement transition due to spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum Hall bilayers

Band-inverted electron-hole bilayers support quantum spin Hall insulator and exciton condensate phases. Interest in quantum spin Hall effect in these systems has recently put them in the spotlight. We investigate such a bilayer in an external magnetic field. We show that the interlayer correlations lead to formation of a helical quantum Hall exciton condensate state. Existence of the counterpropagating edge modes in this system results in formation of a ground state spin-texture not supporting gapless single-particle excitations. The charged edge excitations in a sufficiently narrow Hall bar are confined: a charge on one of the edges always gives rise to an opposite charge on the other edge. Magnetic field and gate voltages allow the control of a confinement-deconfinement transition of charged edge excitations, which can be probed with nonlocal conductance. Confinement-deconfinement transitions are of great interest, not least because of their possible significance in shedding light on the confinement problem of quarks.

Electronic systems with inverted band structures can support exotic topological insulator and exciton condensate states. Here, the authors demonstrate the formation of a helical exciton condensate in quantum Hall bilayers, and a quark-like quasiparticle confinement-deconfinement transition.

Fractional Solitons in Excitonic Josephson Junctions

The Josephson effect is especially appealing to physicists because it reveals macroscopically the quantum order and phase. In excitonic bilayers the effect is even subtler due to the counterflow of supercurrent as well as the tunneling between layers (interlayer tunneling). Here we study, in a quantum Hall bilayer, the excitonic Josephson junction: a conjunct of two exciton condensates with a relative phase ϕ0 applied. The system is mapped into a pseudospin ferromagnet then described numerically by the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. In the presence of interlayer tunneling, we identify a family of fractional sine-Gordon solitons which resemble the static fractional Josephson vortices in the extended superconducting Josephson junctions. Each fractional soliton carries a topological charge Q that is not necessarily a half/full integer but can vary continuously. The calculated current-phase relation (CPR) shows that solitons with Q = ϕ0/2π is the lowest energy state starting from zero ϕ0 - until ϕ0 > π - then the alternative group of solitons with Q = ϕ0/2π - 1 takes place and switches the polarity of CPR.

Interlayer coherence and entanglement in bilayer quantum Hall states at filling factor ν=2/λ

We study coherence and entanglement properties of the state space of a composite bi-fermion (two electrons pierced by λ magnetic flux lines) at one Landau site of a bilayer quantum Hall system. In particular, interlayer imbalance and entanglement (and its fluctuations) are analyzed for a set of U(4) coherent (quasiclassical) states generalizing the standard pseudospin U(2) coherent states for the spin-frozen case. The interplay between spin and pseudospin degrees of freedom opens new possibilities with regard to the spin-frozen case. Actually, spin degrees of freedom make interlayer entanglement more effective and robust under perturbations than in the spin-frozen situation, mainly for a large number of flux quanta λ. Interlayer entanglement of an equilibrium thermal state and its dependence with temperature and bias voltage is also studied for a pseudo-Zeeman interaction.

Interplay of exciton condensation and the quantum spin hall effect in InAs/GaSb bilayers

We study the phase diagram of the inverted InAs/GaSb bilayer quantum wells. For a small tunneling amplitude between the layers, we find that the system is prone to the formation of an s-wave exciton condensate phase, where the spin structure of the order parameter is uniquely determined by the small spin-orbit coupling arising from the bulk inversion asymmetry. The phase is topologically trivial and does not support edge transport. On the contrary, for a large tunneling amplitude, we obtain a topologically nontrivial quantum spin Hall insulator phase with a p-wave exciton order parameter, which enhances the hybridization gap. These topologically distinct insulators are separated by an insulating phase with spontaneously broken time-reversal symmetry. Close to the phase transition between the quantum spin Hall and time-reversal broken phases, the edge transport shows quantized conductance in small samples, whereas in long samples the mean free path associated with the backscattering at the edge is temperature independent, in agreement with recent experiments.

Bosonic Mott insulator with Meissner currents

We introduce a generic bosonic model exemplifying that (spin) Meissner currents can persist in insulating phases of matter. We consider two species of interacting bosons on a lattice. Our model exhibits separation of charge (total density) and spin (relative density): the charge sector is gapped in a bosonic Mott insulator phase with total density one, while the spin sector remains superfluid due to interspecies conversion. Coupling the spin sector to the gauge fields yields a spin Meissner effect reflecting the long-range spin superfluid coherence. We investigate the resulting phase diagram and describe other possible spin phases of matter in the Mott regime possessing chiral currents as well as a spin-density wave phase. The model presented here is realizable in Josephson junction arrays and in cold atom experiments.

Quantum Hall effects in graphene-based two-dimensional electron systems

In this article we review the quantum Hall physics of graphene-based two-dimensional electron systems, with a special focus on recent experimental and theoretical developments. We explain why graphene and bilayer graphene can be viewed respectively as J D 1 and 2 chiral two-dimensional electron gases (C2DEGs), and why this property frames their quantum Hall physics. The current status of experimental and theoretical work on the role of electron-electron interactions is reviewed at length with an emphasis on unresolved issues in the field, including the role of disorder in current experiments. Special attention is given to the interesting low magnetic field limit, and to the relationship between quantum Hall effects and the spontaneous anomalous Hall effects that might occur in bilayer graphene systems in the absence of a magnetic field.

Quantum Hall superfluids in topological insulator thin films

Three-dimensional topological insulators have protected Dirac-cone surface states. In this Letter we argue that gapped excitonic superfluids with spontaneous coherence between top and bottom surfaces can occur in the topological insulator (TI)-thin-film quantum Hall regime. We find that the large dielectric constants of TI materials increase the layer separation range over which coherence survives and decrease the superfluid sound velocity, but have little influence on the superfluid density or on the charge gap. The coherent state at total Landau-level filling factor νT=0 is predicted to be free of edge modes, qualitatively altering its transport phenomenology compared to the widely studied case of νT=1 in GaAs double-quantum wells.

Phase diagram of a quantum Hall pseudospin ferromagnet in a two-subband electron system

We employ the self-consistent local density approximation and the microscopic Hartree-Fock theory to investigate the quantum Hall pseudospin ferromagnets at the Landau levels degenerate regime of a single quantum well with two-subbands filled. We carry out a detailed calculation of the pseudospin anisotropy energy using real experimental parameters and obtain the phase diagrams that would be accessed experimentally by changing the electron density and the bias voltage. We find that an easy-plane and easy-axis quantum Hall pseudospin ferromagnet can form at total filling factors ν = 3 and ν = 4, respectively, which are consistent with experimental observation. Our study provides some insight into the symmetry of the ground state and may help in understanding the underlying mechanism.

Josephson vortex motion as a source for dissipation of superflow of e-h pairs in bilayers

It is shown that in a bilayer excitonic superconductor dissipative losses emerge under transmission of the current from the source to the load. These losses are proportional to the square of the interlayer tunneling amplitude and are independent of the value of the input current. The case of a quantum Hall bilayer is considered. The bilayer may work as a transmission line if the input current exceeds a certain critical value. An input current higher than the critical one induces Josephson vortices in the bilayer. The difference in electrochemical potentials is required to feed the load and it forces Josephson vortices to move. The state becomes non-stationary which leads to dissipation.

Pseudospin soliton in the nu=1 bilayer quantum Hall state

We investigate a domain structure of pseudospins, a soliton lattice in the bilayer quantum Hall state at total Landau level filling factor nu = 1, in a tilted magnetic field, where the pseudospin represents the layer degree of freedom. An anomalous peak in the magnetoresistance Rxx appears at the transition point between the commensurate and incommensurate phases. The Rxx at the peak is highly anisotropic for the angle between the in-plain magnetic field B parallel and the current, and indicates a formation of the soliton lattice aligned parallel to B parallel. The temperature dependence of the Rxx peak reveals that the dissipation is caused by thermal fluctuations of pseudospin solitons. We also study a phase diagram of the bilayer nu = 1 system, and the effects of density imbalance between the two layers.

Coherence network in the quantum Hall bilayer

Recent experiments on quantum Hall bilayers near total filling factor 1 have demonstrated that they support an imperfect two-dimensional superfluidity, in which there is nearly dissipationless transport at nonvanishing temperature observed both in counterflow resistance and interlayer tunneling. We argue that this behavior may be understood in terms of a coherence network induced in the bilayer by disorder, in which an incompressible, coherent state exists in narrow regions separating puddles of dense vortex-antivortex pairs. A renormalization group analysis shows that it is appropriate to describe the system as a vortex liquid. We demonstrate that the dynamics of the nodes of the network leads to a power law temperature dependence of the tunneling resistance, whereas thermally activated hops of vortices across the links control the counterflow resistance.

Vortices, tunneling, and deconfinement in bilayer quantum Hall excitonic superfluid

The physics of vortices, instantons, and deconfinement is studied for layered superfluids in connection to bilayer quantum Hall systems at filling fraction nu = 1. We develop an effective gauge theory taking into account both vortices and instantons induced by interlayer tunneling. The renormalization group flow of the gauge charge and the instanton fugacity shows that the coupling of the gauge field to vortex matter produces a continuous transition between the confining phase of free instantons and condensed vortices and a deconfined gapless superfluid where magnetic charges are bound into dipoles. The interlayer tunneling conductance and the layer-imbalance induced inhomogeneous exciton condensate are discussed in connection to experiments.

Noise spectroscopy and interlayer phase coherence in bilayer quantum Hall systems

Bilayer quantum Hall systems develop strong interlayer phase coherence when the distance between layers is comparable to the typical distance between electrons within a layer. The phase-coherent state has until now been investigated primarily via transport measurements. We argue here that interlayer current and charge-imbalance noise studies in these systems will be able to address some of the key experimental questions. We show that the characteristic frequency of current noise is that of the zero wave vector collective mode, which is sensitive to the degree of order in the system. Local electric potential noise measured in a plane above the bilayer system, on the other hand, is sensitive to finite-wave-vector collective modes and, hence, to the soft-magnetoroton picture of the order-disorder phase transition.

Phase diagram for quantum hall bilayers at nu=1

We present a phase diagram for a double quantum well bilayer electron gas in the quantum Hall regime at a total filling factor nu=1, based on exact numerical calculations of the topological Chern number matrix and the (interlayer) superfluid density. We find three phases: a quantized Hall state with pseudospin superfluidity, a quantized Hall state with pseudospin "gauge-glass" order, and a decoupled composite Fermi liquid. Comparison with experiments provides a consistent explanation of the observed quantum Hall plateau, Hall drag plateau, and vanishing Hall drag resistance, as well as the zero-bias conductance peak effect, and suggests some interesting points to pursue experimentally.

Observation of soft magnetorotons in bilayer quantum Hall ferromagnets

Inelastic light-scattering measurements of low-lying collective excitations of electron double layers in the quantum Hall state at total filling nu(T)=1 reveal a deep magnetoroton in the dispersion of charge-density excitations across the tunneling gap. The roton softens and sharpens markedly when the phase boundary for transitions to highly correlated compressible states is approached. The findings are interpreted with Hartree-Fock evaluations that link soft magnetorotons to enhanced excitonic Coulomb interactions and to quantum phase transitions in the ferromagnetic bilayers.