Magnetic Oscillations of a Fractional Hall Dot

We show that a quantum dot in the fractional Hall regime exhibits mesoscopic magnetic oscillations with a period which is a multiple of the period for free electrons. Our calculations are performed for parabolic quantum dots with hard-core electron-electron interactions and are exact in the strong field limit for $k_B T$ smaller than the fractional Hall gap. Explicit expressions are given for the temperature dependence of the amplitude of the oscillations.Comment: 11 pages, IUCM-004, plain te

Pauli-Limited Superconductivity in Small Grains

We report on an exploration of the mean-field phase diagram for Pauli-limited superconductivity in small metallic grains. Emphasis is placed on the crossover from the ultra-small grain limit where superconductivity disappears to the bulk thin-film limit as the single-particle level spacing in the grain decreases. We find that the maximum Zeeman coupling strength compatible with superconductivity increases with decreasing grain size, in spite of a monotonically decreasing condensation energy per unit volume.Comment: 4 pages of text, 6 figure

Asymptotically exact trial wave functions for yrast states of rotating Bose gases

We revisit the composite fermion (CF) construction of the lowest angular momentum yrast states of rotating Bose gases with weak short range interaction. For angular momenta at and below the single vortex, $L \leq N$, the overlaps between these trial wave functions and the corresponding exact solutions {\it increase} with increasing system size and appear to approach unity in the thermodynamic limit. In the special case $L=N$, this remarkable behaviour was previously observed numerically. Here we present methods to address this point analytically, and find strongly suggestive evidence in favour of similar behaviour for all $L \leq N$. While not constituting a fully conclusive proof of the converging overlaps, our results do demonstrate a striking similarity between the analytic structure of the exact ground state wave functions at $L \leq N$, and that of their CF counterparts. Results are given for two different projection methods commonly used in the CF approach

Edge State Tunneling in a Split Hall Bar Model

In this paper we introduce and study the correlation functions of a chiral one-dimensional electron model intended to qualitatively represent narrow Hall bars separated into left and right sections by a penetrable barrier. The model has two parameters representing respectively interactions between top and bottom edges of the Hall bar and interactions between the edges on opposite sides of the barrier. We show that the scaling dimensions of tunneling processes depend on the relative strengths of the interactions, with repulsive interactions across the Hall bar tending to make breaks in the barrier irrelevant. The model can be solved analytically and is characterized by a difference between the dynamics of even and odd Fourier components. We address its experimental relevance by comparing its predictions with those of a more geometrically realistic model that must be solved numerically.Comment: 13 pages, including 4 figures,final version as publishe

Disorder and interactions in quantum Hall ferromagnets near ν=1\nu=1

We report on a finite-size Hartree-Fock study of the competition between disorder and interactions in a two-dimensional electron gas near Landau level filling factor $\nu=1$. The ground state at $\nu=1$ evolves with increasing disorder from a fully spin-polarized ferromagnet with a charge gap, to a partially spin-polarized ferromagnetic Anderson insulator, to a quasi-metallic paramagnet at the critical point between $i=0$ and $i=2$ quantum Hall plateaus. Away from $\nu=1$, the ground state evolves from a ferromagnetic Skyrmion quasiparticle glass, to a conventional quasiparticle glass, and finally to a conventional Anderson insulator. We comment on signatures of these different regimes in low-temperature transport and NMR lineshape and peak position data.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, submitted to PR

Magnetization orientation dependence of the quasiparticle spectrum and hysteresis in ferromagnetic metal nanoparticles

We use a microscopic Slater-Koster tight-binding model with short-range exchange and atomic spin-orbit interactions that realistically captures generic features of ferromagnetic metal nanoparticles to address the mesoscopic physics of magnetocrystalline anisotropy and hysteresis in nanoparticle quasiparticle excitation spectra. Our analysis is based on qualitative arguments supported by self-consistent Hartree-Fock calculations for nanoparticles containing up to 260 atoms. Calculations of the total energy as a function of magnetization direction demonstrate that the magnetic anisotropy per atom fluctuates by several percents when the number of electrons in the particle changes by one, even for the largest particles we consider. Contributions of individual orbitals to the magnetic anisotropy are characterized by a broad distribution with a mean more than two orders of magnitude smaller than its variance and with no detectable correlations between anisotropy contribution and quasiparticle energy. We find that the discrete quasiparticle excitation spectrum of a nanoparticle displays a complex non-monotonic dependence on an external magnetic field, with abrupt jumps when the magnetization direction is reversed by the field, explaining recent spectroscopic studies of magnetic nanoparticles. Our results suggests the existence of a broad cross-over from a weak spin-orbit coupling to a strong spin-orbit coupling regime, occurring over the range from approximately 200- to 1000-atom nanoparticles.Comment: 39 pages, 18 figures, to be published in Physical Review

Thin films of a three-dimensional topological insulator in a strong magnetic field: a microscopic study

The response of thin films of Bi$_2$Se$_3$ to a strong perpendicular magnetic field is investigated by performing magnetic bandstructure calculations for a realistic multi-band tight-binding model. Several crucial features of Landau quantization in a realistic three-dimensional topological insulator are revealed. The $n=0$ Landau level is absent in ultra-thin films, in agreement with experiment. In films with a crossover thickness of five quintuple layers, there is a signature of the $n=0$ level, whose overall trend as a function of magnetic field matches the established low-energy effective-model result. Importantly, we find a field-dependent splitting and a strong spin-polarization of the $n=0$ level which can be measured experimentally at reasonable field strengths. Our calculations show mixing between the surface and bulk Landau levels which causes the character of levels to evolve with magnetic field.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure