Paired states of fermions in two dimensions with breaking of parity and time-reversal symmetries, and the fractional quantum Hall effect

TL;DR

This paper explores the topological phases of fermion pairing in two dimensions with broken P and T symmetries, revealing connections to quantum Hall states and nonabelian statistics, and analyzing phase transitions and disorder effects.

Contribution

It provides a detailed topological classification of fermion pairing states with specific angular momentum, linking weak and strong pairing phases to known quantum Hall states and identifying the nature of phase transitions.

Findings

Weak-pairing phase resembles Moore-Read state with nonabelian statistics

Transition involves a bulk Majorana fermion with changing mass

Disorder effects on quasiparticles are analyzed

Abstract

We analyze pairing of fermions in two dimensions for fully-gapped cases with broken parity (P) and time-reversal (T), especially cases in which the gap function is an orbital angular momentum ($l$) eigenstate, in particular $l=-1$ (p-wave, spinless or spin-triplet) and $l=-2$ (d-wave, spin-singlet). For $l\neq0$, these fall into two phases, weak and strong pairing, which may be distinguished topologically. In the cases with conserved spin, we derive explicitly the Hall conductivity for spin as the corresponding topological invariant. For the spinless p-wave case, the weak-pairing phase has a pair wavefunction that is asympototically the same as that in the Moore-Read (Pfaffian) quantum Hall state, and we argue that its other properties (edge states, quasihole and toroidal ground states) are also the same, indicating that nonabelian statistics is a {\em generic} property of such a paired phase. The strong-pairing phase is an abelian state, and the transition between the two phases involves a bulk Majorana fermion, the mass of which changes sign at the transition. For the d-wave case, we argue that the Haldane-Rezayi state is not the generic behavior of a phase but describes the asymptotics at the critical point between weak and strong pairing, and has gapless fermion excitations in the bulk. In this case the weak-pairing phase is an abelian phase which has been considered previously. In the p-wave case with an unbroken U(1) symmetry, which can be applied to the double layer quantum Hall problem, the weak-pairing phase has the properties of the 331 state, and with nonzero tunneling there is a transition to the Moore-Read phase. The effects of disorder on noninteracting quasiparticles are considered.