Anisotropic Quantum Hall Droplets

TL;DR

This paper analyzes anisotropic quantum Hall droplets, deriving explicit formulas for local observables, exploring edge correlations, and proposing a measurement scheme for anisotropy using microwave absorption.

Contribution

It introduces a semiclassical approach to describe anisotropic quantum Hall droplets and connects edge correlations with conformal field theory, providing a new way to measure anisotropy.

Findings

Localized energy eigenstates on potential level curves

Long-ranged, inhomogeneous edge correlations

Absorption rate depends on droplet shape and wave polarization

Abstract

We study two-dimensional (2D) droplets of noninteracting electrons in a strong magnetic field, placed in a confining potential with arbitrary shape. Using semiclassical methods adapted to the lowest Landau level, we obtain near-Gaussian energy eigenstates that are localized on level curves of the potential and have a position-dependent height. This one-particle insight allows us to deduce explicit formulas for expectation values of local many-body observables, such as density and current, in the thermodynamic limit. In particular, correlations along the edge are long-ranged and inhomogeneous. As we show, this is consistent with the system's universal low-energy description as a free 1D chiral conformal field theory of edge modes, known from earlier works in simple geometries. A delicate interplay between radial and angular dependencies of eigenfunctions ultimately ensures that the theory is homogeneous in terms of the canonical angle variable of the potential, despite its apparent inhomogeneity in terms of more na\"ive angular coordinates. Finally, we propose a scheme to measure the anisotropy by subjecting the droplet to microwave radiation; we compute the corresponding absorption rate and show that it depends on the droplet's shape and the waves' polarization. These results, both local and global, are likely to be observable in solid-state systems or quantum simulators of 2D electron gases with a high degree of control on the confining potential.