We examine theoretically the effects caused by a periodic external potential on the correlated motion of a two-dimensional electron system under strong magnetic fields corresponding to a filling factor 1/2. To describe the resulting complex dynamics, we adopt a composite fermion approach and we determine in a two loop approximation the density-response function $K_{00}(\bfq,ω)$ and the compressibility. We show explicitly that the long-wavelength limit of $K_{00}(\bfq,ω)$ exhibits substantial anisotropic behavior induced by the modulation, and that the system tends to be incompressible in a direction orthogonal to the modulation as opposed to its response along the modulation.
In this paper, we found a new type of insulator - composite spin liquid which can be regarded as a short range B-type topological spin-density-wave. Composite spin liquid is topological ordered state beyond the classification of traditional spin liquid states. The elementary excitations are the "composite electrons" with both spin degree of freedom and charge degree of freedom, together with topological spin texture. This topological state supports chiral edge mode but no topological degeneracy.
We propose a method to calculate the charge dynamical structure factors for the ground states of correlated electron systems based on the variational Monte Carlo method. Our benchmarks for the one- and two-dimensional Hubbard models show that inclusion of composite-fermion excitations in the basis set greatly improves the accuracy, in reference to the exact charge dynamical structure factors for clusters. Together with examination for larger systems beyond tractable sizes by the exact diagonalization, our results indicate that the variational Monte Carlo method is a promising way for studies o…
While an ordinary Fermi sea is perturbatively robust to interactions, the paradigmatic composite-fermion (CF) Fermi sea arises as a non-perturbative consequence of emergent gauge fields in a system where there was no Fermi sea to begin with. A mean-field picture suggests two Fermi seas, of composite fermions made from electrons or holes in the lowest Landau level, which occupy different areas away from half filling and thus appear to represent distinct states. We show that in the microscopic theory of composite fermions, which satisfies particle-hole symmetry in the lowest Landau level to an e…
Strong interactions and topology drive a wide variety of correlated ground states. Some of the most interesting of these ground states, such as fractional quantum Hall states and fractional Chern insulators, have fractionally charged quasiparticles. Correlations in these phases are captured by the binding of electrons and vortices into emergent particles called composite fermions. Composite fermion quasiparticles are randomly localized at high levels of disorder and may exhibit charge order when there is not too much disorder in the system. However, more complex correlations were predicted whe…
We present the Composite Operator Method (COM) as a modern approach to the study of strongly correlated electronic systems, based on the equation of motion and Green's function method. COM uses propagators of composite operators as building blocks at the basis of approximate calculations and algebra constrains to fix the representation of Green's functions in order to maintain the algebraic and symmetry properties.
The classic composite fermion field theory (Ref. 1) builds up an excellent framework to uniformly study important physical objects and globally explain anomalous experimental phenomena in fractional quantum Hall physics while there are also inherent weaknesses. We present a nonperturbative emergent Dirac fermion theory from this strongly correlated composite fermion field theory, which overcomes these serious long-standing shortcomings. The particle-hole symmetry of Dirac equation resolves this particle-hole symmetry enigma in the composite fermion field theory. With the help of presented nume…
Barrier planes described by the Ionic Hubbard model and sandwiched between metallic planes on both sides are studied using unrestricted Hartree Fock. For zero onsite correlation, the presence of the metallic interface generates an additional gap in the energy spectrum away from half filling, if the chemically modulated potential in the barrier planes exceed a critical value. There is reentrant behaviour and an insulator-metal-insulator transition as we tune onsite correlation for fixed site potential. The metal is thus able to penetrate the barrier planes due to proximity effect, in a system t…
We derive the scattering length of composite bosons (cobosons) within the framework of the composite boson many-body formalism that uses correlated-pair states as a basis, instead of free fermion states. The integral equation constructed from this physically relevant basis makes transparent the role of fermion exchange in the coboson-coboson effective scattering. Three potentials used for Cooper pairs, fermionic-atom dimers, and semiconductor excitons are considered. While the s-wave scattering length for the BCS-like potential is just equal to its Born value, the other two are substantially s…
The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) is extensively studied, but the explanation for Hall plateau widths and excitation energy gaps remains elusive. We study the effective theory of FQHE built upon experimental inputs of Hall current distribution, edge dynamics, and many-body correlations. We argue that correlated composites of integer spin, comprising electrons and their images, localized at the edge of the incompressible strip are the basic transport entity. We show in the lowest Landau level that Zeeman interactions of these composites produce all odd denominator plateaus and effective…
Lightwave quantum electronics utilizes the oscillating carrier wave of intense laser fields to control quantum materials properties. Using quantum kinetic equations of motion, we describe lightwave-driven nonlinear quantum transport of electronic spin and charge with simultaneous quantum fluctuations of non-collinear local spins. During cycles of field oscillations, spin-charge inter-atomic quantum excitations trigger non-adiabatic time evolution of an antiferromagnetic insulator state into a metallic non-equilibrium state with transient magnetization. Lightwave modulation of electronic hoppin…
Motivated by a recent experiment of Willett et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 4478 (1997)], we employ semiclassical composite-fermion theory to study the effect of a periodic density modulation on a quantum Hall system near Landau level filling factor nu=1/2. We show that even a weak density modulation leads to dramatic changes in surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) propagation, and propose an explanation for several key features of the experimental observations. We predict that properly arranged dc transport measurements would show a structure similar to that seen in SAW measurements.
Recent transport experiments in spatially modulated quasi-1D structures created on top of LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interfaces have revealed some interesting features, including phenomena conspicuously absent without the modulation. In this work, we focus on two of these remarkable features and provide theoretical analysis allowing their interpretation. The first one is the appearance of two-terminal conductance plateaus at rational fractions of $e^2/h$. We explain how this phenomenon, previously believed to be possible only in systems with strong repulsive interactions, can be stabilized in a syste…
We report on exact-diagonalization studies of correlated many-electron states in the half-filled Landau levels of graphene, including pseudospin (valley) degeneracy. We demonstrate that the polarized Fermi sea of non-interacting composite fermions remains stable against a pairing transition in the lowest two Landau levels. However, it undergoes spontaneous depolarization, which is unprotected owing to the lack of single-particle pseudospin splitting. These results suggest the absence of the Pfaffian phase in graphene.
Correlated electron materials (CEMs) host a rich variety of condensed matter phases. Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a prototypical CEM with a temperature-dependent metal-to-insulator (MIT) transition with a concomitant crystal symmetry change. External control of MIT in VO2 - especially without inducing structural changes - has been a long-standing challenge. In this work, we design and synthesize modulation-doped VO2-based thin film heterostructures that closely emulate a textbook example of filling control in a correlated electron insulator. Using a combination of charge transport, hard x-ray pho…
Theory predicts that double layer systems realize "two-component composite fermions," which are formed when electrons capture both intra- and inter-layer vortices, to produce a wide variety of new strongly correlated liquid and crystal states as a function of the layer separation. Recent experiments in double layer graphene have revealed a large number of layer-correlated fractional quantum Hall states in the lowest Landau level, many of which have not been studied quantitatively in previous theoretical works. We consider the competition between various liquid and crystal states at several of …
Strong variations in superconducting critical temperatures in different families of the cuprate perovskites, even with similar hole doping in their copper-oxygen planes, suggest the importance of lattice modulation effects. The one-dimensional incommensurate lattice modulation (ILM) of Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+y}, with the average atomic positions perturbed beyond the unit cell, offers an ideal test ground for studying the interplay between superconductivity and the long-range incommensurate lattice fluctuations. Here we report Scanning nano X-ray Diffraction (SnXRD) imaging of incommensurate lattic…
Most available theories for correlated electron transport are based on the Hubbard Hamiltonian. In this effective theory, renormalized hopping and interaction parameters only implicitly incorporate the coupling of correlated charge carriers to microscopic degrees of freedom. Unfortunately, no spectroscopy can individually probe such renormalizations, limiting the applicability of Hubbard models. We show here that the role of each individual degree of freedom can be made explicit by using a new experimental technique, which we term 'quantum modulation spectroscopy' and we demonstrate here in th…
We argue that interesting strongly correlated two-dimensional electron systems can be created by modulation doping near a heterojunction between Mott insulators. Because the dopant atoms are remote from the carrier system, the electronic system will be weakly disordered. We argue that the competition between different ordered states can be engineered by choosing appropriate values for the dopant density and the setback distance of the doping layer. In particular larger setback distances favor two-dimensional antiferromagnetism over ferromagnetism. We estimate some key properties of modulation-…
We show that the entanglement spectrum associated with a certain class of strongly correlated many-body states --- the wave functions proposed by Laughlin and Jain to describe the fractional quantum Hall effect --- can be very well described in terms of a simple model of non-interacting (or weakly interacting) composite fermions.
The Wigner crystal of composite fermions is a strongly correlated state of complex emergent particles, and therefore its unambiguous detection would be of significant importance. Recent observation of optical resonances in the vicinity of filling factor ν = 1/3 has been interpreted as evidence for a pinned Wigner crystal of composite fermions [Zhu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 126803 (2010)]. We evaluate in a microscopic theory the shear modulus and the magnetophonon and magnetoplasmon dispersions of the composite fermion Wigner crystal in the vicinity of filling factors 1/3, 2/5, and 3/7. We …
Kondo-like effect, namely the upturn of resistivity at low temperatures, has been observed in perovskite manganite when nonmagnetic insulators were doped as the secondary phase. In this paper, the low-temperature resistivity upturn effect was argued to be originated from the interfacial magnetic phase reconstruction. Heisenberg spin lattices have been simulated using Monte Carlo method to reveal the phase competition around the secondary phase boundary, namely the manganite-insulator boundary behaves a weak antiferromagnetic tendency. And the resistor-network model based on the double-exchange…
Friedel oscillations induced by open boundary conditions in a two-band Hubbard model for CuO chains are numerically studied. We find that for physically realistic parameters and close to quarter filling, these oscillations have a 2k_F modulation according with experimental results on YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-delta}. In addition, we predict that, for the same parameters, as hole doping is reduced from quarter filling to half filling, Friedel oscillations would acquire a 4k_F modulation, typical of a strongly correlated electrons regime. The 4k_F modulation dominates also in the electron doped region. The …
We study strongly correlated ground and excited states of rotating quasi-2D Fermi gases constituted of a small number of dipole-dipole interacting particles with dipole moments polarized perpendicular to the plane of motion. As the number of atoms grows, the system enters {\it an intermediate regime}, where ground states are subject to a competition between distinct bulk-edge configurations. This effect obscures their description in terms of composite fermions and leads to the appearance of novel composite fermion quasi-hole states. In the presence of dipolar interactions, the principal Laughl…
We synthesize and partly review recent developments relating the physics of the half-filled Landau level in two dimensions to correlated surface states of topological insulators in three dimensions. The latter are in turn related to the physics of certain three dimensional quantum spin liquid states. The resulting insights provide an interesting answer to the old question of how particle-hole symmetry is realized in composite fermion liquids. Specifically the metallic state at filling $ν= \frac{1}{2}$ - described originally in pioneering work by Halperin , Lee, and Read as a liquid of composit…
The so-called ``non-Fermi liquid'' behavior is very common in strongly correlated systems. However, its operational definition in terms of ``what it is not'' is a major obstacle against theoretical understanding of this fascinating correlated state. Recently there has been much interest in entanglement entropy as a theoretical tool to study non-Fermi liquids. So far explicit calculations have been limited to models without direct experimental realizations. Here we focus on a two dimensional electron fluid under magnetic field and filling fraction $ν=1/2$, which is believed to be a non-Fermi li…
The quantum interference effects due to the Aharonov-Bohm-type phase factors are studied in the layered $t-t'-t_\perp-U-J$ strongly correlated system relevant for cuprates. Casting Coulomb interaction in terms of composite-fermions via the flux attachment facility, we argue that U(1) compact group instanton events labeled by a topological winding number are essential configurations of the phase field dual to the charge. The impact of these topological excitations is calculated for the phase diagram, which displays the "hidden" quantum critical point.
We investigate features in the single-particle spectral function beyond the Hubbard bands in the strongly correlated normal phase of the Bose-Hubbard model. There are two distinct classes of additional peaks generated by the bosonic statistics. The first type is thermally activated Hubbard "sidebands", with the same physical origin as the zero-temperature Hubbard bands, but generated by excitations from thermally activated local occupation number states. The second class are two-particle fluctuation resonances driven by the lattice dynamics. In the unity filling Mott insulator, this takes the …
We study semiclassical dynamics of anisotropic Heisenberg models in two and three dimensions. Such models describe lattice spin systems and hard core bosons in optical lattices. We solve numerically Landau-Lifshitz type equations on a lattice and show that in the phase diagram of magnetization and interaction anisotropy, one can identify several distinct regimes of dynamics. These regions can be distinguished based on the character of one dimensional solitonic excitations, and stability of such solitons to transverse modulation. Small amplitude and long wavelength perturbations can be analyzed…
We introduce (3+1) dimensional models of short-range-interacting electrons that form a strongly correlated many-body state whose low-energy excitations are relativistic neutral fermions coupled to an emergent gauge field, $\text{QED}_{4}$. We discuss the properties of this critical state and its instabilities towards exotic phases such as a gapless `composite' Weyl semimetal and fully gapped topologically ordered phases that feature anyonic point-like as well as line-like excitations. These fractionalized phases describe electronic insulators. They may be further enriched by symmetries which r…
The Rydberg blockade induces strongly correlated many-body effects in Rydberg atom arrays, including rich ground-state phases and many-body scar states in the excitation spectrum. In this letter, we propose a composite spin representation that can provide a unified description for major features in this system. The composite spin combines Rydberg excitation and the auxiliary fermions, which are introduced to implement the Rydberg blockade constraint automatically. First, we focus on the PXP model describing one-dimensional arrays with the Rydberg blocking radius being a lattice spacing. Using …
I investigate quantum decoherence in a one-body density matrix of a composite particle consisting of two correlated particles. Because of a two-body correlation in the composite particle, quantum decoherence occurs in the one-body density matrix that has been reduced from the two-body density matrix. As the delocalization of the distribution of the composite particle grows, the entanglement entropy increases, and the system can be well-described by a semi-classical approximation, wherein the center position of the composite particle can be regarded as a classical coordinate. I connect the quan…
A new class of analytic and parameter-free, strongly correlated wave functions of simple functional form is derived for few electrons in two-dimensional quantum dots under high magnetic fields. These wave functions are constructed through breaking and subsequent restoration of the circular symmetry, and they offer a natural alternative to the Laughlin and composite-fermion functions. Underlying our approach is a collectively-rotating-electron-molecule picture. The angular momenta allowed by molecular symmetry correspond to the filling-factors' hierarchy of the fractional quantum Hall effect.
We calculate the phase diagram of the topological honeycomb model in the presence of strong interactions. We concentrate on half filling and employ a ${\mathbb Z}_{2}$ slave-spin method to find a band insulator with staggered density, a spin-density-wave and a Mott insulating phase. Both the band insulator and the spin-density wave come in various topological varieties. Finally, we calculate the response function relevant for lattice modulation spectroscopy with cold atomic gases in optical lattices.
