graduate

Interferometry in a Quantized Hall State

TYPEColloquium
Speaker:Professor Bertrand I. Halperin
Affiliation:Harvard University
Date:04.11.2010
Time:16:30
Location:Lidow Rosen Auditorium (323)
Abstract:Interference experiments in can be a powerful probe of the nature of
quantum Hall states and of their edges. However, existing experiments
are only partially understood, even in the case of integer quantized
Hall states. I shall review how Fabry-Perot and Mach-Zehnder geometries
can be implemented in quantized Hall systems, and I shall present some
of the basic theoretical considerations for Fabry-Perot experiments,
including, in the case of fractional quantized Hall states, the role of
fractional charge and fractional statistics and the possibility of
non-abelian statistics.  We shall also look at complications that arise
in real systems due to fluctuations in the area of the interfering
chiral edge state, driven by Coulomb  interactions with the enclosed
localized quasiparticle states, whose total occupation numbers must
change discontinuously.  We shall highlight the difference between
“Aharonov-Bohm”  and “Coulomb-Dominated” behaviors seen in various
experiments.