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RESEARCH PRODUCT
Confinement-deconfinement transition due to spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum Hall bilayers
Dmitry I. PikulinP. G. SilvestrovTimo Hyartsubject
High Energy Physics - TheorySpontaneous symmetry breakingHigh Energy Physics::LatticeScienceFOS: Physical sciencesGeneral Physics and Astronomy02 engineering and technologyQuantum Hall effect01 natural sciencesDeconfinementGeneral Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular BiologyArticleQuantum spin Hall effectMesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)0103 physical sciences010306 general physicsSpin (physics)PhysicsCondensed Matter::Quantum GasesMultidisciplinaryta114Condensed matter physicsCondensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale PhysicsCondensed Matter::OtherQHall effectGeneral Chemistry021001 nanoscience & nanotechnologyCondensed Matter::Mesoscopic Systems and Quantum Hall Effect3. Good healthMagnetic fieldHigh Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)Fractional quantum Hall effectAtomic physics0210 nano-technologyGround statebilayersdescription
Band-inverted electron-hole bilayers support quantum spin Hall insulator and exciton condensate phases. 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. In contrast to the chiral edge states of the quantum Hall exciton condensate in electron-electron bilayers, existence of the counterpropagating edge modes results in formation of a ground state spin-texture not supporting gapless single-particle excitations. This feature has deep consequences for the low energy behavior of the system. Namely, the charged edge excitations in a sufficiently narrow Hall bar are confined, i.e.~a charge on one of the edges always gives rise to an opposite charge on the other edge. Moreover, we show that magnetic field and gate voltages allow to control 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.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-04-20 |