# Comment on “Effective Mass and g-Factor of Four Flux Quanta Composite Fermions”

## Abstract

73.40.Hm

In a recent Letter, Yeh et al. have shown beautiful experimental results which indicate that the composite fermions with four flux quanta (<sup>4</sup>CF) behave as fermions with mass and spin just like those with two flux quanta. They observed the collapse of the fractional quantum Hall gaps when the following condition is satisfied with some integer $`j`$,

$$g^{}\mu _\mathrm{B}B_{\mathrm{tot}}=j\mathrm{}\omega _\mathrm{c}^{},$$
(1)   
where $`g^{}`$ and $`\omega _\mathrm{c}^{}`$ are the g-factor and the cyclotron frequency of the <sup>4</sup>CF, respectively. They argued that level crossing and hence the collapse occur when eq.(1) is satisfied. However, as they have pointed out, level crossing always occurs away from the Fermi level, and gap at the Fermi level remains finite in their interpretation. Thus the reason of the collapse was left as a mystery. Here I will show that part of the mystery is resolved by considering the electron-hole symmetry properly.

The experiment was done around $`\nu =3/4`$, where <sup>4</sup>CF quantum Hall effect occurs at the electron filling factor $`\nu =(3p+1)/(4p+1)`$, $`p=\pm 1,\pm 2\mathrm{}`$. Yeh et al. considered these fillings as electron-hole symmetric states of filling factor $`\nu =p/(4p+1)`$. However, this treatment is not appropriate. We should consider the spin freedom of the <sup>4</sup>CF as coming from the actual spin of the original electrons. Therefore, the electron-hole symmetric state of the filling factor $`\nu =(3p+1)/(4p+1)`$ is realized at $`\nu =1+p/(4p+1)`$.

Now we need to establish a rule for the composite fermion transformation in this situation. For that purpose it is helpful to consider the case of two flux quanta composite fermion (<sup>2</sup>CF) around $`\nu =1/2`$. The electron-hole symmetric state of this case is realized around $`\nu =1+1/2`$. Requiring that the condition for the collapse of the quantum Hall state has the electron-hole symmetry, we get a set of rules. We explain these rules by applying them to the present case of the filling factor $`\nu =1+p/(4p+1)`$. To make the discussion concrete, we consider a finite size system with $`N_e`$ electrons and the Landau level degeneracy $`N_0`$, i.e. $`\nu =1+p/(4p+1)=N_e/N_0`$. This system is converted into that of <sup>4</sup>CF by the following rules. (1) All the electrons are changed into CF’s. (2) However, each electrononic states in the down spin Landau level gives four flux quanta with opposite sign, thus the effective flux quanta in the system is $`N_{0,\mathrm{eff}}=N_04(N_eN_0)`$. Then the effective magnetic field for the CF’s is reduced from $`B_{}`$ to $`B_{\mathrm{eff}}=B_{}/(4p+1)`$. The remaining rules are that (3) the maximum allowed CF filling factor for each spin state is $`|4p+1|`$, and (4) the Zeeman splitting of these levels are $`g^{}\mu _\mathrm{B}B_{\mathrm{tot}}`$. Therefore in the limit of infinite $`g^{}`$ the down spin CF Landau levels are fully occupied up to $`\nu _{}=|4p+1|`$, and up spin levels are occupied with filling factor $`\nu _{}=|p|`$.

Now we can investigate the condition for the collapse of the quantum Hall state. In the course of reducing $`g^{}`$ from infinity, the collapse of the gap at the Fermi level occurs when the highest occupied Landau level (HOLL) of the down spin CF coincide with the lowest unoccupied Landau level(LULL) of the up spin CF. When $`\nu _{}=|p|+k`$, and $`\nu _{}=|4p+1|k`$, with integer $`k`$, the energies of the down spin HOLL and up spin LULL are at

$$E_,=\mathrm{}\omega _c^{}(\nu _,\frac{1}{2})\frac{1}{2}g^{}\mu _\mathrm{B}B_{\mathrm{tot}},$$
(2)   
respectively. Therefore the condition for the collapse is 

$$g^{}\mu _\mathrm{B}B_{\mathrm{tot}}=(|4p+1||p|2k1)\mathrm{}\omega _c^{}j\mathrm{}\omega _c^{}.$$
(3)   
For negative $`p`$ this condition completely explains the strong collapse of the experiment. For example at $`p=2`$ or $`\nu =5/7`$, the collapse is expected at $`j=0`$, 2, and 4, which agrees with the experiment where among $`j=1`$, 2, and 3 only $`j=2`$ shows the collapse. On the other hand, for positive value of $`p`$ the condition above, $`j=3p2k`$, gives only weak collapse, and stronger collapses are observed at $`j=3p2k1`$. This lack of symmetry between positive and negative values of $`p`$ has not been observed for the quantum Hall states of <sup>2</sup>CF around $`\nu =3/2`$, where every strong collapse is associated with the collapse of the energy gap at the Fermi level. The present asymmetry may be related to the fact that the positive $`p`$ gives electron filling factor close to unity: Around $`\nu =1`$ skyrmion excitation that mixes the up and down spin states are known to exists.

Thus I have shown that the strong collapse is related to the closing of the energy gap at the Fermi level of the <sup>4</sup>CF as long as the opposite spin CFs are independent of each other.

I thank Dan Tsui who showed me the experimental results prior to publication while we stayed at Aspen Center for Physics, where main part of this work was done.