Particle-Hole Mirror Symmetries around the Half-Filled Shell: The Quantum Numbers and Algebraic Structure of Composite Fermions

Abstract

Composite fermions (CFs) of the fractional quantum Hall effect are described as spherical products of electron and vortex spinors, built from underlying L=1/2 ladder operators aligned so that the spinor angular momenta Le and Lv are maximal. We identify the CF's quantum numbers as the angular momentum L in (L_e L_v)L, its magnetic projection m_L, the electron number N, with L_v={N-1)/2, and magnetic ν-spin, m_ν=L_e-L_v. Translationally invariant FQHE states are formed by filling p subshells with their respective CFs, in order of ascending L for fixed L_e and L_v, beginning with the lowest allowed value, L=|m_ν|. We show that this wave function has an exactly equivalent hierarchical form. FQHE states can be grouped into ν-spin multiplets mirror symmetric around m_ν=0, with N held constant. Electron particle-hole conjugation with respect to this vacuum is identified as the mirror symmetry relating FQHE states of the same N but distinct fillings ν= p/(2p+1} and p/( 2p-1). Alternatively, mirror symmetric ν-spin multiplets can be constructed in which the magnetic field strength is held fixed: the valence states are electron particle-vortex hole excitations. Particle-hole symmetry -- relating the N-particle FQHE state of filling ν=p/(2p+1} to the $\bar{N}$-particle state of filling {p+1)/(2p+1} -- is shown to be equivalent to electron-vortex exchange. In this construction $\bar{N}$-N CFs of the higher density state occupy an extra zero-mode subshell. We link this structure, familiar from supersymmetric quantum mechanics, to the CF Pauli Hamiltonian, which we show is isospectral, quadratic in the ν-spin raising and lowering operators, and four-fold degenerate. On linearization, it takes a Dirac form similar to that found in the integer quantum Hall effect (IQHE).

26 pages, 8 figures; revisions made to improve readability, including a summary of the main results in the introduction; to be published in Phys Rev B