The half-filled Landau level: The case for Dirac composite fermions
Abstract
In an external magnetic field, the energy of an electron in a two-dimensional system takes discrete values, called Landau levels. At high enough fields, all electrons in a solid can fit in the lowest Landau level. If exactly half of that level is filled with electrons, standard theory predicts that a special fermion liquid phase will form that makes a distinction between the filled and empty states (particles and holes). A recent conjecture, in contrast, predicted a liquid consisting of massless Dirac particles that respects the symmetry between particles and holes. Geraedts et al. used sophisticated numerical methods to provide strong evidence for this conjecture.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Apr 08, 2016
- Source ID
- 10.1126/science.aad4302
Entities
People
- Ashvin Vishwanath
- Max A. Metlitski
- Michael P Zaletel
- Olexei I. Motrunich
- Roger S. K. Mong
- Scott D. Geraedts
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- California Institute of Technology
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- National Science Foundation
- Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
- Sherman Fairchild Foundation
- Simons Foundation
- United States Department of Energy
- University of California
- University of Pittsburgh