708 Ch.

12 Quantum Hall Effect

a special property. Experiments tell us that it is the arising of the

uyz= e2/3h quantum Hall plateau. However, the plateau has a (quite
substantial) width in v , thus it must be true that in a finite interval of
v, the behaviour is controlled by the presence of the 1/3 Laughlin state.
For v differing slightly from 1/3, we will use a kind of a two-fluid
picture: we consider the system as made up of the v = 1/3 quantum
fluid, and a number of quasiparticles. We discuss quasielectrons and
quasiholes from different points of view.
In the Laughlin state the electrons keep their mutual distance
because the relative angular momentum of any two particles is 3. This
state is unique thus it is clear that, upon adding another electron to
the bulk of the system", a relative angular momentum 1, and a closer
approach of two electrons, must arise. The concomitant increase of the
energy is a small fraction21 of e2/Z. Thus the Laughlin ground state for
N electrons is separated by a gap from the lowest bulk excitation with
+
N 1 electrons. In contrast, there would be no such gap if we added
an electron at the perimeter of the system where the average inter-
electronic distance Z f i could be kept, giving rise to all3with N 1 +
electrons.
Adding a single electron to a large system increases the density by an
infinitesimal amount; the same could be achieved by slightly reducing
the system area. Since an infinitesimal compression requires a finite
energy, we may call the system incompressible22. The Laughlin states
are incompressible quantum A uids.
We will be a bit more careful in discussing the quasihole. is

20Here it is implied that the system is still fully spin-polarized, so that an electron
with spin t is added to the next Landau level. Since, in point of actual fact, the
Zeeman splitting is much smaller than either fiw, or e2/eol, a lower-energy excitation
could be constructed by adding a spin-4 electron to the lowest Landau level. We
return to this point later.
21The numbers are eqe = 0.085e2/1 for quasielectrons and Eqh = 0.0287e2/1 for
+
quasiholes [254]. The important quantity is the gap Eqe €qh = 0.114e2/Z.
22Formally,the compressibility K is defined by IE-' = -V(BP/BV) = V ( B 2 E / 6 V 2 ) ,
where V is the volume, P the pressure, and E the energy. For a system whose energy
depends on N only through the density: E = Ne(n), where n = N/A (A being the
area of the system), K-' = n2dp/dn follows, where p = BE/BN is the chemical
potential. The gap amounts to a discontinuity of the chemical potential, thus K
vanishes.