Interference, Coulomb blockade, and the identification of non-abelian quantum Hall states

TL;DR

This paper investigates how interference and Coulomb blockade measurements in quantum Hall systems can identify non-abelian states, highlighting their similarities and differences in experimental signatures.

Contribution

It demonstrates that interference and Coulomb blockade measurements provide equivalent information for identifying quantum Hall states and discusses their potential to distinguish abelian from non-abelian states.

Findings

Interference patterns and Coulomb blockade peaks reveal similar information about quantum Hall states.

Abelian states are more sensitive to local perturbations than non-abelian states.

Measurements can potentially differentiate abelian and non-abelian quantum Hall states despite similar signatures.

Abstract

We examine the relation between different electronic transport phenomena in a Fabry-Perot interferometer in the fractional quantum Hall regime. In particular, we study the way these phenomena reflect the statistics of quantum Hall quasi-particles. For two series of states we examine, one abelian and one non-abelian, we show that the information that may be obtained from measurements of the lowest order interference pattern in an open Fabry-Perot interferometer is identical to the one that may be obtained from the temperature dependence of Coulomb blockade peaks in a closed interferometer. We argue that despite the similarity between the experimental signatures of the two series of states, interference and Coulomb blockade measurements are likely to be able to distinguish between abelian and non-abelian states, due to the sensitivity of the abelian states to local perturbations, to which the non-abelian states are insensitive.