Subperiods and apparent pairing in integer quantum Hall interferometers

Abstract

We analyze the magnetic field and gate voltage dependence of the longitudinal resistance in an integer quantum Hall Fabry-Pérot interferometer, taking into account the interactions between an interfering edge mode, a non-interfering edge mode and the bulk. For weak bulk-edge coupling and sufficiently strong inter-edge interaction, we obtain that the interferometer operates in the Aharonov-Bohm regime with a flux periodicity halved with respect to the usual expectation. Even in the regime of strong bulk-edge coupling, this behavior can be observed as a subperiodicity of the interference signal in the Coulomb dominated regime. We do not find evidence for a connection between a reduced flux period and electron pairing, though. Our results can reproduce some recent experimental findings.

10 pages, 9 figures