Spinful Composite Fermions in a Negative Effective Field

TL;DR

This paper investigates spin configurations of fractional quantum Hall states using composite fermion wavefunctions, predicting spin transitions and comparing results with experiments, including finite-thickness effects, at various filling factors.

Contribution

It provides detailed calculations of spin-dependent composite fermion wavefunctions and predicts spin polarization transitions, extending understanding of fractional quantum Hall states.

Findings

Predicted spin polarization transitions as Zeeman energy varies.

Achieved qualitative agreement with experimental observations.

Predicted spin polarization at zero Zeeman energy for certain states.

Abstract

In this paper we study fractional quantum Hall composite fermion wavefunctions at filling fractions \nu = 2/3, 3/5, and 4/7. At each of these filling fractions, there are several possible wavefunctions with different spin polarizations, depending on how many spin-up or spin-down composite fermion Landau levels are occupied. We calculate the energy of the possible composite fermion wavefunctions and we predict transitions between ground states of different spin polarizations as the ratio of Zeeman energy to Coulomb energy is varied. Previously, several experiments have observed such transitions between states of differing spin polarization and we make direct comparison of our predictions to these experiments. For more detailed comparison between theory and experiment, we also include finite-thickness effects in our calculations. We find reasonable qualitative agreement between the experiments and composite fermion theory. Finally, we consider composite fermion states at filling factors \nu = 2+2/3, 2+3/5, and 2+4/7. The latter two cases we predict to be spin polarized even at zero Zeeman energy.