Spontaneous interlayer coherence in double-layer quantum Hall systems: Charged vortices and Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transitions
- 15 February 1995
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review B
- Vol. 51 (8), 5138-5170
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.51.5138
Abstract
At strong magnetic fields, double-layer two-dimensional electron-gas systems can form an unusual broken-symmetry state with spontaneous interlayer phase coherence. In this paper we explore the rich variety of quantum and finite-temperature phase transitions associated with this broken symmetry. We describe the system using a pseudospin language in which the layer degree of freedom is mapped to a fictional spin 1/2 degree of freedom. With this mapping the spontaneous symmetry breaking is equivalent to that of a spin 1/2 easy-plane ferromagnet. In this language, spin textures can carry a charge. In particular, vortices carry ±e/2 electrical charge and vortex-antivortex pairs can be neutral or carry charge ±e. We derive an effective low-energy action and use it to discuss the charged and collective neutral excitations of the system. We have obtained the parameters of the Landau-Ginzburg functional from first-principles estimates and from finite-size exact diagonalization studies. We use these results to estimate the dependence of the critical temperature for the Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition on layer separation.Keywords
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