Metastable anisotropy orientation of nematic quantum Hall fluids

2008/03/31 by Daniel G. Barci, Zochil González Arenas
Physics and Astronomy · #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.78.085303

published as Phys. Rev. B 78, 085303 (2008) · 10 pages, 8 figures, final version as will appear in PRB

arxiv created 2008/07/21 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We analyze the experimental observation of metastable anisotropy resistance orientation at half-filled quantum Hall fluids by means of a model of a quantum nematic liquid in an explicit symmetry-breaking potential. We interpret the observed ``rotation'' of the anisotropy axis as a process of nucleation of nematic domains and compute the nucleation rate within this model. By comparing with experiment, we are able to predict the critical radius of nematic bubbles---R_c\ensuremath∼2.6 \ensuremathμm. Each domain contains about 10⁴ electrons.

Citations

• Solitons in conducting polymers
• Liquid-crystal phases of quantum Hall systems
• Competition between Pomeranchuk instabilities in the nematic and hexatic channels in a two-dimensional spinless Fermi fluid
• Ordering, metastability and phase transitions in two-dimensional systems