Fractionalization into merons in quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper investigates the emergence of meron excitations as the lowest energy states in small quantum dots under Coulomb interactions, using exact diagonalization and a spin chain mapping.

Contribution

It demonstrates that meron excitations are the fundamental low-energy states in quantum dots without Zeeman coupling, linking quantum dot excitations to the Haldane-Shastry spin chain.

Findings

Meron excitations are lowest energy states in quantum dots.

Mapping between quantum dot excitations and Haldane-Shastry spin chain.

Analysis performed for N=4 and N=6 quantum dots.

Abstract

We study by exact diagonalization, in the lowest Landau level approximation, the Coulomb interaction problem of N = 4 and N = 6 quantum dot in the limit of zero Zeeman coupling. We find that meron excitations constitute the lowest lying states of the quantum dots. This is based on a mapping between the excitations of the dot and states of the Haldane-Shastry spin chain.