# Phonon Mediated Transresistivity in a Double Layer Composite Fermion System

## Abstract

We consider the fractional drag in a double layer system of two-dimensional electrons in the half-filled lowest Landau level. At sufficiently large inter-layer separations the drag is dominated by exchange of acoustic phonons and exhibits novel temperature and inter-layer distance dependences. At low temperatures the phonon mediated drag is strongly enhanced with respect to the case of zero magnetic field.

In the recent years, the problem of two-dimensional electrons in a double quantum well has attracted a lot of, both, experimental and theoretical attention. Apart from other interesting properties, this system offers a new opportunity for studying electron correlations by virtue of the phenomenon of the frictional drag. The latter manifests itself in the form of a finite transresistivity defined as a voltage induced in an open circuit (passive) layer while a current is flowing through the other (active) one (see  and references therein).

In the absence of electron tunneling, the transresistivity which takes its origin in momentum transfer from the active to the passive layer can only result from inter-layer Coulomb coupling. Thus, being of the interaction origin, the transresistivity provides a sensitive probe for such important characteristics of the two-dimensional electron gas as the electron polarization operator and the dynamically screened inter-layer coupling.

Detailed experimental studies of the frictional drag in semiconductor heterostructures revealed features associated with inter-layer plasmons . However, it was predicted that, despite its dominance at small inter-layer distances $`d`$, the drag caused by the direct Coulomb coupling decays rapidly with $`d`$ . Since the experimentally measured drag showed a weaker distance dependence at large $`d`$, it was suggested that some other mechanism of momentum transfer ought to be at work.

As such, exchange of acoustic phonons was proposed as the most likely alternative. Improving on the earlier results obtained in , the authors of Ref. considered the effects of, both, deformation potential (DP) and piesoelectric (PE) electron-phonon couplings. This work was primarily concerned with the behavior at temperatures comparable to or higher than the Bloch-Gruneisen temperature $`T_{BG}=2uk_F`$ defined in terms of the Fermi momentum $`k_F`$ and the speed of sound $`u`$, where the DP coupling is known to be far more important than the PE one. At temperatures smaller than $`T_{BG}`$ their relative strength reverts though.

According to the general argument , the low-temperature transresistivity is controlled by the phase-space volume available for thermally excited bosonic modes of an appropriate kind. Thus, measuring an exponent $`n`$ in the low-temperature dependence $`\rho _{12}T^n`$ allows one to identify a mechanism responsible for the drag. Namely, the Coulomb drag gives $`n=2`$ while the phonon mediated drag tends to yield substantially higher $`n`$ values .

Since at high enough temperatures the frictional drag of any origin is expected to undergo a crossover to a universal linear $`T`$ dependence , an observation of a maximum of $`\rho _{12}(T)/T^2`$ at $`TT_{BG}`$  provides a strong evidence in favor of the phonon mechanism.

Recent drag measurements performed in the Quantum Hall regime  revealed new features which are believed to be associated with a formation of compressible metal-like electron states at half-filling as well as other even-denominator filling fractions $`\nu 1/2p`$ of the lowest Landau level. In the framework of the theory by Halperin, Lee, and Read  these states are described in terms of spinless fermionic quasiparticles dubbed composite fermions (CFs). In the mean field picture of the best studied $`\nu =1/2`$ Quantum Hall state, the CFs experience zero effective field and occupy all states inside some ostensible Fermi surface of the size $`k_F=(4\pi n_e)^{1/2}`$ given in terms of the electron density $`n_e`$.

Among other differences from ordinary electrons in zero field, the compressible CF states were predicted to feature a peculiar Coulomb drag behavior $`\rho _{12}T^{4/3}`$ characteristic of an anomalously slow relaxation of overdamped density fluctuations .

Further work in this direction focused on the experimentally observed tendency of $`\rho _{12}(T)`$ to saturate at low $`T`$ or even increase upon decreasing the driving current , the features that were attributed to a possible CF inter-layer pairing which might result in a formation of an incompressible (intrinsically double-layer) gapful electron state .

However, on the general grounds, one expects that neither the direct Coulomb coupling nor the proposed pairing mechanism remain relevant at large enough inter-layer separations. Instead, the drag measurements performed in this regime may reveal important details of coupling between the CFs and acoustic phonons.

Motivated by this expectation, in the present paper we consider the phonon mediated drag in a widely-separated double layer CF system.

Earlier insight into the problem of the CF-phonon coupling has been gained from the analysis of the available experimental data on phonon-limited mobility , phonon drag contribution to thermopower , and energy loss rate by hot electrons due to phonon emission  at $`\nu =1/2`$.

The bare coupling between CFs and PE phonons is described by the standard electron-phonon vertex

$$M_\lambda (𝐐)=eh_{14}(A_\lambda /2\rho u_\lambda Q)^{1/2},A_l=\frac{9q_z^2q^4}{2Q^6},A_{tr}=\frac{8q_z^4q^2+q^6}{4Q^6}$$
$`(1)`$   
where $`𝐐=(𝐪,q_z)`$ is the 3D phonon momentum, $`\rho `$ is the bulk density of $`GaAs`$, $`u_\lambda `$ is the speed of sound with polarization $`\lambda =l,tr`$, and $`h_{14}`$ is the non-zero component of the piesoelectric tensor which relates the local electrostatic potential to the lattice displacement.

As demonstrated in Ref., the bare PE vertex (1) undergoes full dynamical screening governed by the intra-layer $`V_{11}(q)=2\pi e^2/ϵ_0q`$ and inter-layer $`V_{12}(q)=V_{11}(q)e^{qd}`$ Coulomb potentials, $`ϵ_012.9`$ being the bulk dielectric constant of $`GaAs`$.

In the CF theory, the effects of screening are described in terms of the intra-layer CF density $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}(\omega ,𝐪)`$ and current $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{}(\omega ,𝐪)`$ polarization functions. However, when computing physical quantities, these polarizations always appear in a particular combination, which one can readily recognize as the irreducible electron density response function 

$$\chi (\omega ,𝐪)=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}}{1(4\pi )^2\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}\mathrm{\Pi }_{}}=\frac{q^2}{q^2(dn_e/d\mu )^1(4\pi )^2i\omega \sigma (q)}$$
$`(2)`$   
This peculiar form of the density response which is characteristic of the compressible CF states is given in terms of the CF compressibility $`dn_e/d\mu `$ and the momentum-dependent conductivity $`\sigma (q)=\frac{1}{2}k_Fmin(l,2/q)`$, where $`l`$ stands for the CF mean free path . Throughout this paper, we refer to the momenta $`q`$ larger (smaller) than $`l^1`$ as ballistic (diffusive) regime, respectively.

Moreover, as a straightforward analysis shows, the possibility to express such quantities of physical interest as the transresistivity solely in terms of $`\chi (\omega ,𝐪)`$ also holds for the dynamically screened CF-phonon coupling included alongside with the direct inter-layer Coulomb interaction.

With both present, the two interactions constitute the effective inter-layer coupling

$$W_{12}=\frac{V_{12}+D_{12}}{(1+\chi (V_{11}+D_{11}))^2\chi ^2(V_{12}+D_{12})^2}$$
$`(3)`$   
where the two-dimensional electron-phonon interaction function $`D_{ij}(\omega ,𝐪)`$ is computed with the use of the bulk phonon propagator ($`\omega _+=\omega +i(u/2l_{ph})sgn\omega `$)

$$D_\lambda (\omega ,𝐐)=\frac{2u_\lambda Q}{\omega _+^2u_\lambda ^2Q^2},$$
$`(4)`$   
which depends on the three-dimensional momentum $`𝐐=(𝐪,q_z)`$ and accounts for a finite phonon mean free path $`l_{ph}`$ due to boundary scattering, and the wave function of the lowest occupied transverse electron subband $`\psi (z)ze^{z/w}`$ that determines the formfactor $`F_i(q_z)=𝑑z|\psi _i(z)|^2e^{iq_zz}`$.

For $`\omega `$ close to $`u_\lambda q`$ the relevant values of $`q_z`$ turn out to be small. Therefore one can only keep the contribution of transverse phonons $`(A_lA_{tr}1/4)`$ with velocity $`u3\times 10^5cm/s`$ which for $`qw1`$ results in the formula :

$$D_{ij}(\omega ,𝐪)=\underset{\lambda }{}\frac{dq_z}{2\pi }F_i(q_z)F_j(q_z)|M_\lambda (𝐐)|^2𝒟_{ij}(\omega ,𝐐)$$

$$\frac{(eh_{14})^2}{8u^2\rho \sqrt{q^2(\omega _+/u)^2}}(\delta _{ij}+(1\delta _{ij})e^{d\sqrt{q^2(\omega _+/u)^2}})$$
$`(5)`$   
Since perpendicular magnetic field does not affect the $`z`$-axis confinement, Eq.5 is applicable at arbitrary magnetic fields.

To the (lowest nontrivial) second order in the effective inter-layer coupling (3) the transresistivity is given by the standard expression :

$$\rho _{12}=\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}\frac{h}{e^2}\frac{1}{Tn_e^2}\frac{d𝐪}{(2\pi )^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega (\frac{qIm\chi (\omega ,𝐪)}{\mathrm{sinh}\frac{\omega }{2T}})^2|W_{12}(\omega ,𝐪)|^2$$
$`(6)`$   
which can also incorporate, under some modifications, the effects of a magnetic field and/or disorder.

In order to facilitate a direct comparison with the calculation of $`\rho _{12}(T)`$ in zero field, we will refer to the following expression

$$ϵ(\omega ,𝐪)=\frac{dn_e}{d\mu }(\chi ^1+V_{11})=1+\frac{dn_e}{d\mu }(V_{11}(q)+\frac{i\omega \sigma (q)}{q^2})$$
$`(7)`$   
as the effective dielectric function of a single layer CF system.

By making use of Eq.7 and putting $`D_{12}D_{11}=D`$ we arrive at the expression

$$\rho _{12}=\frac{1}{16\pi ^3}\frac{h}{e^2}\frac{1}{Tn_e^2}\frac{\sigma ^2(q)dq}{q}\frac{\omega ^2d\omega }{\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{\omega }{2T}}\frac{|V_{12}(q)+D(\omega ,𝐪)|^2}{|(ϵ(\omega ,𝐪)V_{12}(q))(ϵ(\omega ,𝐪)+V_{12}(q)+2D(\omega ,𝐪))|^2}$$
$`(8)`$   
where the upper limit in the integral over momentum is set by either the maximum span of the CF Fermi surface $`2k_F`$ or by the inverse width of the quantum well $`w^1`$, which, for the sake of simplicity, we choose to be equally restrictive ($`2k_Fw1`$).

The relative strength of the PE phonon coupling is controlled by a small parameter $`\eta =h_{14}^2ϵ_0/16\pi u^2\rho 10^3`$. Therefore it proves to be convenient to divide the $`q`$-integral onto the momenta smaller and greater than $`d^1`$. In the former, the small parameter $`\eta `$ allows one to neglect $`D`$ in Eq.8 altogether and, in this way, to recover the pure case of the Coulomb drag. In this range of momenta, the integral over frequencies receives its main contribution from $`\omega q^2V_{11}(q)/\sigma (q)`$ corresponding to the overdamped density mode  whose (purely imaginary) dispersion is derived from the equation $`ϵ(\omega ,𝐪)=0`$.

Depending on the values of the two dimensionless parameters $`\xi =k_Fd`$ and $`\sigma =k_Fl`$, the contribution of the momenta $`qd^1`$ undergoes a number of crossovers. Provided that both $`\sigma `$ and $`\xi `$ are sufficiently large, Eq.8 yields a variety of regimes characterized by different dependences on the dimensionless temperature $`\tau =T/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ measured in units of the average Coulomb energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }=k_Fe^2/ϵ_0100K`$:

$$\rho _{12}^C(T)\left(\begin{array}{c}(\tau \sigma /\xi )^2\mathrm{ln}(\tau \sigma ^3/\xi ),\\ \tau <\xi /\sigma ^3\\ (\tau /\xi )^{4/3},\\ \xi /\sigma ^3<\tau <1/\xi ^2\\ \tau /\xi ^2,\\ 1/\xi ^2<\tau \end{array}\right)or\left(\begin{array}{c}(\tau \sigma /\xi )^2\mathrm{ln}(\tau /\sigma \xi ),\\ \tau <1/\sigma \xi \\ \tau \sigma /\xi ^3,\\ 1/\sigma \xi <\tau \end{array}\right)$$
$`(9)`$   
in the situations $`l>d`$ and $`l<d`$, respectively.

In the case of a long CF mean free path, the asymptotical low-$`T`$ regimes $`\rho _{12}^CT^{4/3}`$ and $`T^2\mathrm{ln}T`$ were previously obtained under the assumptions of a ballistic and diffusive CF dynamics, respectively . According to Eq.9, upon increasing the inter-layer separation beyond the CF mean free path the former regime ceases to be accessible.

Since neither Eq.9 nor its zero field counterpart $`\rho _{12}^{C,0}\tau ^2\xi ^4`$  depend on the mass of the charge carriers, the only reason behind the observed three orders of magnitude enhancement of the $`\nu =1/2`$ drag at $`d300A`$  is because is was measured at low enough $`T`$.

As follows from Eq.9, when treated in the second order perturbation theory, the pure Coulomb drag at $`\nu =1/2`$ can only be responsible for a temperature dependence $`\rho _{12}(T)T^n`$ with $`n<2`$, including the regime of the logarithmic enhancement.

Since the inter-layer Coulomb correlations decay rapidly with $`d`$, and the perturbative result (9) becomes more and more accurate, one might conclude that the Coulomb drag alone could not explain a maximum in $`\rho _{11}(T)/T^2`$, should one be observed.

Nonetheless, the recent experiment on the double layer $`\nu =1/2`$ system with $`d5000A`$ did reveal such a maximum occurring at roughly the same $`T2K`$ as in the zero field case . By analogy with the situation in zero field, this observation may call for an alternate mechanism of inter-layer momentum transfer.

In our unified approach that led to Eq.8, an additional contribution due to exchange of PE phonons (both real and virtual ones corresponding to the contributions proportional to $`ImD`$ and $`ReD`$, respectively ) comes from the momenta $`qd^1`$, at which one can instead neglect $`V_{12}`$ in the integrand.

First, we consider the case of a short phonon mean free path due to boundary scattering (the exact conditions under which this approximation holds are to be specified later).

The phonon mediated contribution to the transresistivity can be cast in the form

$$\rho _{12}^{ph}\frac{1}{16\pi ^3}\frac{h}{e^2}\frac{\eta ^2}{Tn_e^2}_{1/d}^{2k_F}\frac{\sigma ^2(q)dq}{q}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\omega ^2d\omega }{\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{\omega }{2T}}\frac{e^{d\sqrt{(q^2(\omega _+/u)^2)}}}{|ϵ(\omega ,𝐪)|^4\sqrt{(q^2(\omega /u)^2)^2+(q/l_{ph})^2}}$$
$`(10)`$   
By introducing the parameter $`\delta =uϵ_0/e^210^2`$ we present the results of the integrations in the form

$$\rho _{12}^{ph}(T)/\eta ^2\mathrm{ln}(l_{ph}/d)\left(\begin{array}{c}\tau ^4\sigma ^2\delta ^2(1+\sigma ^2\delta ^2)^2,\\ \delta \xi ^1<\tau <\delta \sigma ^1\\ \tau ^6\delta ^8,\\ max(\delta \xi ^1,\delta \sigma ^1)<\tau <\delta ^2\\ \tau ^2,\\ max(\delta \xi ^1,\delta \sigma ^1,\delta ^2)<\tau <\delta \\ \tau \delta ,\\ \delta <\tau \end{array}\right)$$
$`(11)`$   
All of the above regimes can only be accessible if there exist sizable intervals of temperature within the bounds imposed by the conditions $`\xi ^1\sigma ^1\delta 1`$. With all the regimes present, the exponent $`n`$ in the approximate power-law temperature dependence of $`\rho _{12}^{ph}(T)`$ does not remain constant and changes non-monotonously as $`T`$ gets smaller.

The $`\mathrm{ln}(l_{ph}/d)`$ dependence of the transresistivity on the inter-layer separation holds as long as $`dl_{ph}`$, while at higher $`T`$ Eq.11 yields $`\rho _{12}^{ph}\mathrm{exp}(d/l_{ph})`$.

A different variety of regimes occurs in the case of a long phonon mean free path where, in order to arrive at a finite result, one has to keep $`D`$ in the denominator of Eq.8 that now reads as

$$\rho _{12}^{ph}\frac{1}{16\pi ^3}\frac{h}{e^2}\frac{\eta ^2}{Tn_e^2}_{1/d}^{2k_F}\frac{\sigma ^2(q)dq}{q}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\omega ^2d\omega }{\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{\omega }{2T}}\frac{e^{d\sqrt{q^2(\omega /u)^2}}}{|ϵ(\omega ,𝐪)(ϵ(\omega ,𝐪)\sqrt{q^2(\omega /u)^2}2\eta )|^2}$$
$`(12)`$   
With $`D`$ included, the integrand in (12) develops a new weakly damped pole at $`\omega uq\sqrt{1\eta ^2}`$, which corresponds to a collective electron-phonon mode that forms in a double layer system (cf.). When integrating over frequencies, we restrict ourselves to the vicinity of this pole.

The coupled electron-phonon mode can only occur provided that neither the real nor the imaginary part of the denominator in (12) is affected by the intrinsic phonon lifetime at all $`qd^1`$. The corresponding criteria can be expressed as $`l_{ph}\eta ^2max(d,(k_F\delta )^1,d\sigma ^1\delta ^1)`$.

Expanding the denominator near the pole and carrying out the integrations we arrive at the following regimes:

$$\rho _{12}^{ph}(T)/\eta ^2\left(\begin{array}{c}\tau ^4\sigma \delta ^3(1+\sigma ^2\delta ^2)^1,\\ \delta \xi ^1<\tau <\delta \sigma ^1\\ \tau ^5\delta ^6,\\ max(\delta \xi ^1,\delta \sigma ^1)<\tau <\delta ^2\\ \tau ^3\delta ^2,\\ max(\delta \xi ^1,\delta \sigma ^1,\delta ^2)<\tau <\delta \\ \tau ,\\ \delta <\tau \end{array}\right)$$
$`(13)`$   
Unlike the Coulomb drag (9) that originates from small momenta $`qd^1`$, the integral (12) receives only a negligible correction from the region where the dielectric function $`ϵ(\omega ,𝐪)`$ approaches zero.

According to Eq.13, the contribution of the electron-phonon mode remains nearly independent of $`d`$ as long as the condition $`d\sqrt{q^2(\omega /u)^2}qd\eta 1`$ is satisfied for all momenta less than $`2k_F`$, which implies $`\xi \eta <1`$.

Similar to the case of ordinary electrons in zero field Eq.12 includes, apart from the Lorenzian-like contribution associated with the collective mode that Eq.13 does account for, a substantial non-Lorenzian tail due to processes involving virtual phonons, which gives rise to a non-trivial overall dependence on $`d`$ (cf. Ref.). For this reason one should not expect the estimates (11) and (13) obtained under the assumptions of, respectively, short and long $`l_{ph}`$ to match smoothly at $`l_{ph}d\eta ^2`$.

In order to simplify a comparison between our results and the zero field analysis  we make the following choice of the parameters: $`\xi \sigma \delta ^1`$, which greatly reduces the number of the relevant regimes. Incidentally, the above choice is not that far off the experimental situation of Ref.: $`d5000A`$ and $`l1\mu m`$ which corresponds to a single layer resistivity $`\rho _{11}2000\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

At these parameter values, in the range of temperatures $`0.01T/T_{BG}1`$ one can only expect to observe the asymptotical behavior $`\rho _{12}^{ph}(T)\eta ^2(T/T_{BG})^2\delta ^2\mathrm{ln}(l_{ph}/d)`$ or $`\eta ^2(T/T_{BG})^3\delta `$ for the phonon mean free path being shorter or longer than its crossover value estimated as $`d\eta ^2`$, which is well above a typical one $`l_{ph}0.1mm`$ .

In either case, the exponent is substantially reduced as compared to the case of ordinary electrons in zero field: $`\rho _{12}^{ph,0}\eta ^2(T/T_{BG}^0)^6\delta ^2\mathrm{ln}(l_{ph}/d)`$ and $`\eta ^2(T/T_{BG}^0)^5\delta `$, respectively.

Thus, compared to its zero field counterpart, the phonon mediated drag in the half-filled Landau level is strongly enhanced at all temperatures smaller than $`T_{BG}`$ (in Ref. the measured ratio of the transresistivities was $`\rho _{12}^0/\rho _{12}10^3`$ at $`T1K`$), while they become comparable at $`TT_{BG}`$.

For lower values of the exponent $`n`$ in the power-law temperature dependence of the transresistivity the maximum of the ratio $`\rho _{12}(T)/T^2`$ shifts towards lower $`T`$. When contrasted against its position in zero field, this downward shift could, at least partly, compensate for another, upward, shift due to the extra factor $`T_{BG}/T_{BG}^0=\sqrt{2}`$ resulting from the ratio between the CF and the ordinary electron’s Fermi momenta at a given density . Interestingly enough, in Ref. the maximum was found to occur in both cases at roughly the same position, which was, however, lower than the estimated value of $`T_{BG}^05K`$.

Compared to the direct Coulomb drag in the CF system (9), the relative strength of the phonon mediated drag is weaker than in the case of ordinary electrons in zero field. Indeed, on the basis of Eq.13 one would conclude that even at $`TT_{BG}`$ the two competing contributions to the transresistivity can only become comparable at $`\xi \eta ^1`$ which corresponds to inter-layer separations in excess of $`10\mu m`$, while the use of Eq.11 would result in even higher values of $`d`$.

Conversely, at zero field the phonon-mediated drag outpowers the direct Coulomb one already at $`\xi \delta ^{1/4}\eta ^{1/2}`$ which only requires separations $`d10^3A`$.

Thus, it does not seem to be obvious that under the experimental conditions of Ref. the phonon mediated drag indeed dominates over the direct Coulomb one in the CF regime, although it indeed appears to be the main contribution at zero field and $`TT_{BG}^0`$.

It is worthwhile mentioning that, by itself, an observation of a peak in $`\rho _{12}(T)/T^2`$ in a magnetic field may not yet provide an unambiguous evidence in favor of the phonon mechanism. In Ref. such a peak was predicted to occur in strong enough magnetic fields with no reference to phonons or the peculiar CF behavior in the lowest Landau level. Seemingly corroborating, is the observation  of the peak’s evolution with magnetic field at fixed $`k_F`$ in a whole range of magnetic fields (see also ).

Finally, a comparison between the data from Refs. and  shows that upon increasing $`d`$ by a factor of $`20`$ both $`\rho _{12}^0(1K)`$ and $`\rho _{12}(1K)`$ drop by the factors of $`50`$ and $`250`$, respectively.

In the case of $`\rho _{12}^0`$, this change is markedly less pronounced than the $`\xi ^4`$ behavior of the direct Coulomb drag , which could be naturally explained if a crossover to the weakly $`d`$-dependent phonon mediated regime occurred already at $`d10^3A`$.

On the contrary, the change in $`\rho _{12}`$ is somewhat more consistent with the roughly $`\xi ^2`$ behavior of the CF Coulomb drag than with the nearly $`d`$-independent phonon contribution that has taken over at some intermediate $`d`$. Thus, despite some qualitative agreement with the experimental findings of Ref., our results call for further experimental studies of the frictional drag in the CF regime, which have to be performed at even larger inter-layer separations $`d`$ in order to unequivocally point at the phonon-related origin of the phenomenon.

To summarize, we carried out a comprehensive analysis of the frictional drag in the double layer compressible CF state of electrons in the lowest Landau level. We considered the effect of the inter-layer electron-phonon coupling and contrasted it against the drag caused by the direct Coulomb interaction. We found that in the CF system the low temperature phonon mediated drag is strongly enhanced compared to the case of ordinary electrons in zero field. However, in order to single out the phonon drag in the CF system, the transresistivity measurements have to be done at larger inter-layer distances than those which are generally sufficient in the zero field case.