Formation of an Edge Striped Phase in Fractional Quantum Hall Systems

Abstract

We have performed an exact diagonalization study of up to N=12 interacting electrons on a disk at filling $\nu =1/3$ for both Coulomb and $V_1$ short-range interaction for which Laughlin wave function is the exact solution. For Coulomb interaction and $N\ge 10$ we find persistent radial oscillations in electron density, which are not captured by the Laughlin wave function. Our results srongly suggest formation of a chiral edge striped phase in quantum Hall systems. The amplitude of the charge density oscillations decays slowly, perhaps as a square root of the distance from the edge; thus the spectrum of edge excitations is likely to be affected.

4 pages, 3 Figs. included