Effective Field Theory of Fractional Quantized Hall Nematics

TL;DR

This paper develops a Landau-Ginzburg theoretical framework for fractional quantum Hall nematic states, explaining their properties, dualities, and experimental relevance, especially at filling factor 7/3.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic Landau-Ginzburg theory for fractional quantum Hall nematics and establishes its duality with Lifshitz-Chern-Simons theory, enabling wave function computation.

Findings

Hall resistance remains quantized in the nematic phase

Longitudinal resistivity is anisotropic due to quasiparticles

Theory explains recent experimental observations at  = 7/3

Abstract

We present a Landau-Ginzburg theory for a fractional quantized Hall nematic state and the transition to it from an isotropic fractional quantum Hall state. This justifies Lifshitz-Chern-Simons theory -- which is shown to be its dual -- on a more microscopic basis and enables us to compute a ground state wave function in the symmetry-broken phase. In such a state of matter, the Hall resistance remains quantized while the longitudinal DC resistivity due to thermally-excited quasiparticles is anisotropic. We interpret recent experiments at Landau level filling factor \nu =7/3 in terms of our theory.