Finite Temperature Fractional Quantum Hall Effect

TL;DR

This paper studies the fractional quantum Hall effect at finite temperature using a fermion Chern-Simons approach, showing that key quantization features remain stable while excitation spectra may change with temperature.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of how finite temperature affects fractional quantum Hall properties, highlighting stability of quantization and potential spectral changes.

Findings

Hall conductance remains quantized at finite T

Quasi-particle charge and statistics are unaffected by thermal fluctuations

Finite T may induce qualitative changes in low energy excitation spectrum

Abstract

We investigate fractional quantum Hall effect at finite temperature using a fermion Chern-Simons field theoretical approach. In the absence of impurity scattering, the essential aspects of fractional quantum Hall effect, such as the quantization of Hall conductance, as well as quasi-particle charge and statistics are unrenormalized by thermal fluctuations. On the other hand, we find that the low energy excitation spectrum at finite $T$ may undergo some qualitative changes as temperature raises. Possible experimental consequences are discussed.