Thermal ionization of impurity-bound quasiholes in the fractional quantum Hall effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Coulomb impurities interact with quasiholes in fractional quantum Hall states at finite temperatures, revealing an ionization phase transition detectable via exciton sensing.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of thermal ionization of impurity-bound quasiholes and proposes an experimental method to observe this phenomenon.

Findings

Repulsive impurities can pin quasiholes and stabilize FQH states.

Finite temperature causes quasihole ionization from impurities.

An exciton sensing setup can detect the ionization transition.

Abstract

We study the interplay between a Coulomb impurity and quasiholes in a fractional quantum Hall (FQH) state at finite temperatures. While a repulsive impurity can pin a quasihole and stabilize the FQH state, an attractive impurity cannot bind quasiholes. We demonstrate that at finite temperatures, a quasihole can be thermally ionized from a repulsive impurity, resulting in an ionization phase transition. We propose an experimental setup using exciton sensing to detect such a thermal ionization of quasiholes.