Specific heat and pairing of Dirac composite fermions in the half-filled Landau level

TL;DR

This paper investigates the pairing mechanisms of Dirac composite fermions at half-filled Landau levels, showing pairing in non-zero angular momentum channels and calculating the specific heat behavior at low temperatures.

Contribution

It provides a numerical analysis of pairing in Dirac fermions, including vertex corrections and specific heat calculations, extending previous work with new numerical and theoretical insights.

Findings

Pairing occurs in non-zero angular momentum channels.

Vertex corrections are zero from the Ward identity.

Specific heat behaves as T ln T at low temperatures.

Abstract

A recent proposal argues that an alternate description of the half-filled Landau level is a theory of massless Dirac fermions. We examine the possibility of pairing of these Dirac fermions by numerically solving the {\em coupled} Eliashberg equations unlike our previous calculation [Wang and Chakravarty, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 94}, 165138 (2016)]. In addition, vertex corrections are calculated to be zero from the Ward identity. We find that pairing is possible in non-zero angular momentum channels; the only differences are minor numerical shifts. As before, the pairing leads to the gapped Pfaffian and anti-Pfaffian states. However, in our approximation scheme, pairing is not possible in the putative particle-hole symmetric state for $\ell=0$ angular momentum. The specific heat at low temperatures of a system of massless Dirac fermions interacting with a transverse gauge field, expected to be relevant for the half-filled Landau level, is calculated. Using the Luttinger formula, it is found be $\propto T\ln T$ in the leading low temperature limit, due to the exchange of transverse gauge bosons. The result agrees with the corresponding one in the nonrelativistic composite fermion theory of Halperin, Lee and Read of the half-filled Landau level.