Quantum Hall states of bosons in rotating anharmonic traps

TL;DR

This paper investigates the ground states of bosons in a rotating anharmonic trap, revealing transitions from Laughlin states to vortex states and changes in density profiles, with rigorous conditions and angular momentum estimates.

Contribution

It provides rigorous conditions for strongly correlated ground states and analyzes phase transitions in rotating bosonic systems with anharmonic confinement.

Findings

Transition from Laughlin state to vortex state with a giant vortex

Indications of a density profile change from flat to Gaussian

Rigorous angular momentum estimates and trial state analysis

Abstract

We study a model of bosons in the lowest Landau level in a rotating trap where the confinement potential is a sum of a quadratic and a quartic term. The quartic term improves the stability of the system against centrifugal deconfinement and allows to consider rotation frequencies beyond the frequency of the quadratic part. The interactions between particles are modeled by a Dirac delta potential. We derive rigorously conditions for ground states of the system to be strongly correlated in the sense that they are confined to the kernel of the interaction operator, and thus contain the correlations of the Bose-Laughlin state. Rigorous angular momentum estimates and trial state arguments indicate a transition from a pure Laughlin state to a state containing in addition a giant vortex at the center of the trap (Laughlin quasi-hole). There are also indications of a second transition where the density changes from a flat profile in a disc or an annulus to a radial Gaussian confined to a thin annulus.