Landau Level Mixing and Solenoidal Terms in Lowest Landau Level Currents

We calculate the lowest Landau level (LLL) current by working in the full Hilbert space of a two dimensional electron system in a magnetic field and keeping all the non-vanishing terms in the high field limit. The answer a) is not represented by a simple LLL operator and b) differs from the current operator, recently derived by Martinez and Stone in a field theoretic LLL formalism, by solenoidal terms. Though that is consistent with the inevitable ambiguities of their Noether construction, we argue that the correct answer cannot arise naturally in the LLL formalism.Comment: 12 pages + 2 figures, Revtex 3.0, UIUC preprint P-94-04-029, (to appear in Mod. Phys. Lett. B

A Field Theory for the Read Operator

We introduce a new field theory for studying quantum Hall systems. The quantum field is a modified version of the bosonic operator introduced by Read. In contrast to Read's original work we do {\em not} work in the lowest Landau level alone, and this leads to a much simpler formalism. We identify an appropriate canonical conjugate field, and write a Hamiltonian that governs the exact dynamics of our bosonic field operators. We describe a Lagrangian formalism, derive the equations of motion for the fields and present a family of mean-field solutions. Finally, we show that these mean field solutions are precisely the Laughlin states. We do not, in this work, address the treatment of fluctuations.Comment: 15 pages, Revtex 3.

Resonating valence bond liquid physics on the triangular lattice

We give an account of the short-range RVB liquid phase on the triangular lattice, starting from an elementary introduction to quantum dimer models including details of the overlap expansion used to generate them. The fate of the topological degeneracy of the state under duality is discussed, as well as recent developments including its possible relevance for quantum computing.Comment: Invited talk at Yukawa Institute Workshop on Quantum Spin Systems; Review with further details for Phys. Rev. Lett 86, 1881 (2001); to appear in Progr. Theor. Phys. (includes relevant style files

Fast preparation of critical ground states using superluminal fronts

We propose a spatio-temporal quench protocol that allows for the fast preparation of ground states of gapless models with Lorentz invariance. Assuming the system initially resides in the ground state of a corresponding massive model, we show that a superluminally-moving `front' that $\textit{locally}$ quenches the mass, leaves behind it (in space) a state $\textit{arbitrarily close}$ to the ground state of the gapless model. Importantly, our protocol takes time $\mathcal{O} \left( L \right)$ to produce the ground state of a system of size $\sim L^d$ ($d$ spatial dimensions), while a fully adiabatic protocol requires time $\sim \mathcal{O} \left( L^2 \right)$ to produce a state with exponential accuracy in $L$. The physics of the dynamical problem can be understood in terms of relativistic rarefaction of excitations generated by the mass front. We provide proof-of-concept by solving the proposed quench exactly for a system of free bosons in arbitrary dimensions, and for free fermions in $d = 1$. We discuss the role of interactions and UV effects on the free-theory idealization, before numerically illustrating the usefulness of the approach via simulations on the quantum Heisenberg spin-chain.Comment: 4.25 + 10 pages, 3 + 2 figure

From exotic phases to microscopic Hamiltonians

We report recent analytical progress in the quest for spin models realising exotic phases. We focus on the question of `reverse-engineering' a local, SU(2) invariant S=1/2 Hamiltonian to exhibit phases predicted on the basis of effective models, such as large-N or quantum dimer models. This aim is to provide a point-of-principle demonstration of the possibility of constructing such microscopic lattice Hamiltonians, as well as to complement and guide numerical (and experimental) approaches to the same question. In particular, we demonstrate how to utilise peturbed Klein Hamiltonians to generate effective quantum dimer models. These models use local multi-spin interactions and, to obtain a controlled theory, a decoration procedure involving the insertion of Majumdar-Ghosh chainlets on the bonds of the lattice. The phases we thus realise include deconfined resonating valence bond liquids, a devil's staircase of interleaved phases which exhibits Cantor deconfinement, as well as a three-dimensional U(1) liquid phase exhibiting photonic excitations.Comment: Invited talk at Peyresq Workshop on "Effective models for low-dimensional strongly correlated systems". Proceedings to be published by AIP. v2: references adde