Hartree-Fock Theory of Skyrmions in Quantum Hall Ferromagnets

TL;DR

This paper uses Hartree-Fock theory to analyze skyrmion excitations in quantum Hall ferromagnets, providing quantitative energy estimates and exploring phase transitions influenced by Zeeman coupling.

Contribution

It offers a detailed Hartree-Fock analysis of skyrmion excitations in quantum Hall systems, including energy calculations and phase transition predictions.

Findings

Quantitative estimates of skyrmion excitation energies.

Dependence of energies on Zeeman coupling, Landau level, and layer thickness.

Prediction of first order phase transitions at filling factor near three.

Abstract

We report on a study of the charged-skyrmion or spin-texture excitations which occur in quantum Hall ferromagnets near odd Landau level filling factors. Particle-hole symmetry is used to relate the spin-quantum numbers of charged particle and hole excitations and neutral particle-hole pair excitations. Hartree-Fock theory is used to provide quantitative estimates of the energies of these excitations and their dependence on Zeeman coupling strength, Landau level quantum numbers, and the thicknesses of the two-dimensional electron layers. For the case of $\nu$ near three we suggest the possibility of first order phase transitions with increasing Zeeman coupling strength from a many skyrmion state to one with many maximally spin-polarized quasiparticles.