Subperiods and apparent pairing in integer quantum Hall interferometers

TL;DR

This paper investigates the interference patterns in integer quantum Hall interferometers, revealing conditions under which flux periodicity is halved and explaining experimental observations without invoking electron pairing.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of flux periodicity and interference signals considering interactions, explaining recent experimental results in quantum Hall interferometers.

Findings

Flux periodicity halved under certain interaction regimes

Subperiodicity observed in Coulomb dominated regime

No evidence linking reduced flux period to electron pairing

Abstract

We analyze the magnetic field and gate voltage dependence of the longitudinal resistance in an integer quantum Hall Fabry-P\'{e}rot interferometer, taking into account the interactions between an interfering edge mode, a non-interfering edge mode and the bulk. For weak bulk-edge coupling and sufficiently strong inter-edge interaction, we obtain that the interferometer operates in the Aharonov-Bohm regime with a flux periodicity halved with respect to the usual expectation. Even in the regime of strong bulk-edge coupling, this behavior can be observed as a subperiodicity of the interference signal in the Coulomb dominated regime. We do not find evidence for a connection between a reduced flux period and electron pairing, though. Our results can reproduce some recent experimental findings.