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1. Engineering parafermions in helical Luttinger liquids

   https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2595632  

   Lyanda-Geller, Yuli ; Ponomarenko, Vadim ; Wang, Ying ; Rokhinson, Leonid ( August 2021 , SPIE Nanoscience + Engineering)

   Drouhin, Henri-Jean M. ; Wegrowe, Jean-Eric ; Razeghi, Manijeh (Ed.)

   Parafermions or Fibonacci anyons leading to universal quantum computing, require strongly interacting systems. A leading contender is the fractional quantum Hall effect, where helical channels can arise from counterpropagating chiral modes. These modes have been considered weakly interacting. However, experiments on transport in helical channels in the fractional quantum Hall effect at a 2/3 filling shows current passing through helical channels on the boundary between polarized and unpolarized quantum Hall liquids nine-fold smaller than expected. This current can increase three-fold when nuclei near the boundary are spin polarized. We develop a microscopic theory of strongly interacting helical states and show that emerging helical Luttinger liquid manifests itself as unequally populated charge, spin and neutral modes in polarized and unpolarized fractional quantum Hall liquids. We show that at strong coupling counter-propagating modes of opposite spin polarization emerge at the sample edges, providing a viable path for generating proximity topological superconductivity and parafermions. Current, calculated in strongly interacting picture is in agreement with the experimental data. 

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2. Edge reconstruction and emergent neutral modes in integer and fractional quantum Hall phases

   https://doi.org/10.1063/10.0010207  

   Khanna, Udit ; Goldstein, Moshe ; Gefen, Yuval ( May 2022 , Low Temperature Physics)

   This paper comprises a review of our recent works on fractional chiral modes that emerge due to edge reconstruction in integer and fractional quantum Hall (QH) phases. The new part added is an analysis of edge reconstruction of the ν = 2/5 phase. QH states are topological phases of matter featuring chiral gapless modes at the edge. These edge modes may propagate downstream or upstream and may support either charge or charge-neutral excitations. From topological considerations, particle-like QH states are expected to support only downstream charge modes. However the interplay between the electronic repulsion and the boundary confining potential may drive certain quantum phase transitions (called reconstructions) at the edge, which are associated to the nucleation of additional pairs of counter-propagating modes. Employing variational methods, here we study edge reconstruction in the prototypical particle-like phases at ν = 1, 1/3, and 2/5 as a function of the slope of the confining potential. Our analysis shows that subsequent renormalization of the edge modes, driven by disorder-induced tunnelling and intermode interactions, may lead to the emergence of upstream neutral modes. These predictions may be tested in suitably designed transport experiments. Our results are also consistent with previous observations of upstream neutral modes in these QH phases and could explain the absence of anyonic interference in electronic Mach-Zehnder setups.

    

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3. Emergent helical edge states in a hybridized three-dimensional topological insulator

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33643-9  

   Chong, Su Kong ; Liu, Lizhe ; Watanabe, Kenji ; Taniguchi, Takashi ; Sparks, Taylor D. ; Liu, Feng ; Deshpande, Vikram V. ( October 2022 , Nature Communications)

   As the thickness of a three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator (TI) becomes comparable to the penetration depth of surface states, quantum tunneling between surfaces turns their gapless Dirac electronic structure into a gapped spectrum. Whether the surface hybridization gap can host topological edge states is still an open question. Herein, we provide transport evidence of 2D topological states in the quantum tunneling regime of a bulk insulating 3D TI BiSbTeSe₂. Different from its trivial insulating phase, this 2D topological state exhibits a finite longitudinal conductance at ~2e²/h when the Fermi level is aligned within the surface gap, indicating an emergent quantum spin Hall (QSH) state. The transition from the QSH to quantum Hall (QH) state in a transverse magnetic field further supports the existence of this distinguished 2D topological phase. In addition, we demonstrate a second route to realize the 2D topological state via surface gap-closing and topological phase transition mechanism mediated by a transverse electric field. The experimental realization of the 2D topological phase in a 3D TI enriches its phase diagram and marks an important step toward functionalized topological quantum devices.

    

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4. Partons as unique ground states of quantum Hall parent Hamiltonians: The case of Fibonacci anyons

   https://doi.org/10.21468/SciPostPhys.15.2.043  

   Tanhayi Ahari, Mostafa ; Bandyopadhyay, Sumanta ; Nussinov, Zohar ; Seidel, Alexander ; Ortiz, Gerardo ( January 2023 , SciPost Physics)

   We present microscopic, multiple Landau level, (frustration-free and positive semi-definite) parent Hamiltonians whose ground states, realizing different quantum Hall fluids, are parton-like and whose excitations display either Abelian or non-Abelian braiding statistics. We prove ground state energy monotonicity theorems for systems with different particle numbers in multiple Landau levels, demonstrate S-duality in the case of toroidal geometry, and establish complete sets of zero modes of special Hamiltonians stabilizing parton-like states, specifically at filling factor\nu=2/3$\nu =2/3$. The emergent Entangled Pauli Principle (EPP), introduced in [Phys. Rev. B 98, 161118(R) (2018)] and which defines the “DNA” of the quantum Hall fluid, is behind the exact determination of the topological characteristics of the fluid, including charge and braiding statistics of excitations, and effective edge theory descriptions. When the closed-shell condition is satisfied, the densest (i.e., the highest density and lowest total angular momentum) zero-energy mode is a unique parton state. We conjecture that parton-like states generally span the subspace of many-body wave functions with the two-bodyM$M$-clustering property within any given number of Landau levels, that is, wave functions withM$M$th-order coincidence plane zeroes and both holomorphic and anti-holomorphic dependence on variables. General arguments are supplemented by rigorous considerations for theM=3$M=3$case of fermions in four Landau levels. For this case, we establish that the zero mode counting can be done by enumerating certain patterns consistent with an underlying EPP. We apply the coherent state approach of [Phys. Rev. X 1, 021015 (2011)] to show that the elementary (localized) bulk excitations are Fibonacci anyons. This demonstrates that the DNA associated with fractional quantum Hall states encodes all universal properties. Specifically, for parton-like states, we establish a link with tensor network structures of finite bond dimension that emerge via root level entanglement.

    

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5. Electrical generation and detection of spin waves in a quantum Hall ferromagnet

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar4061  

   Wei, Di S. ; van der Sar, Toeno ; Lee, Seung Hwan ; Watanabe, Kenji ; Taniguchi, Takashi ; Halperin, Bertrand I. ; Yacoby, Amir ( October 2018 , Science)

   Spin waves are collective excitations of magnetic systems. An attractive setting for studying long-lived spin-wave physics is the quantum Hall (QH) ferromagnet, which forms spontaneously in clean two-dimensional electron systems at low temperature and in a perpendicular magnetic field. We used out-of-equilibrium occupation of QH edge channels in graphene to excite and detect spin waves in magnetically ordered QH states. Our experiments provide direct evidence for long-distance spin-wave propagation through different ferromagnetic phases in theN= 0 Landau level, as well as across the insulating canted antiferromagnetic phase. Our results will enable experimental investigation of the fundamental magnetic properties of these exotic two-dimensional electron systems.

    

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