# An Unsettled Issue in the Theory of the Half-Filled Landau Level

## Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify an unsettled issue in the theory of the half-filled Landau level, and state our point of view.

Whether the half-filled Landau level can be described in terms of a “Fermi liquid” of composite fermions has been controversial. (Hereafter we shall use the phrase “Fermi liquid” in a loose sense. It does not imply, e.g., a finite quasiparticle weight, but simply means that the long wavelength/low energy current-current correlation functions resemble those of a liquid of fermions in zero magnetic field.)

This controversy is somewhat side-tracked by the recent development of an alternative description.  In this new description $`\nu =1/2`$ is pictured as a liquid of fermionic dipoles with each dipole being made up of a composite fermion and a correlation hole. (This way of describing $`\nu =1/2`$ originates from an insightful paper by Read.) Recent evidences suggest that this description has similar infrared difficulty as the fermion Chern-Simons theory.

The following are the main points of this paper:

1. The fermion Chern-Simons theory is not equivalent to the composite Fermi liquid theory of Halperin, Lee and Read. The former is a general formulation, the latter is a bold statement about the dynamics.
2. It can be shown that the neutral fermion (dipole) action in Ref. is the same as that for the fermion Chern-Simons theory in the lowest Landau level.
3. The heart issue is whether, within the fermion Chern-Simons theory, one can describe the half-filled Landau level as composite fermions moving in zero magnetic field.
4. If the electron Hall conductivity is $`e^2/2h`$ and its longitudinal resistivity is non-zero, then a) the composite fermion Hall conductivity ($`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}`$) is $`\frac{e^2}{2h}`$, and b) the neutral fermion Hall conductivity ($`\sigma _{xy}^N`$) is zero. There is strong evidence that real systems (which all theories intend to describe) do show $`\sigma _{xy}=e^2/2h`$ and $`\rho _{xx}>0`$. This is consistent with the presence of particle-hole symmetry.
5. $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=\frac{e^2}{2h}`$ implies that the (polarization) charge current carried by neutral fermions does not have off-diagonal correlation at $`𝐪=0`$.
6. Despite their large (negative) Hall conductance, the composite fermions do have some aspect of a Fermi liquid - their transverse current-current correlation resembles that of electrons in zero magnetic field. This mixed behavior is due to the fact that the composite fermion motion is the superposition of two different types of dynamics: the guiding-center-like intra-dipole dynamics, and the zero-field-like inter-dipole dynamics.

I. The composite Fermi liquid theory   

An amazing fact about $`\nu =1/2`$ is that aside from a large Hall conductance the behavior of electrons near $`\nu =1/2`$ resembles that near zero field. This statement applies to magneto-transport data, as well as other Fermi-surface resonance experiments.

Shortly after Willett et al’s discovery of an anomaly in the acoustic wave propagation, a very novel idea was put forward by Halperin, Lee and Read (HLR). For the reasons described below, we shall refer to the HLR work as the “composite Fermi liquid theory” (CFLT). The CFLT rests on the fermion Chern-Simons description. In this description one views each electron as a composite fermion carrying two quanta of fictitious magnetic flux (see Fig.1). Unlike the electrons, the composite fermions see two different magnetic fields: the applied field $`B`$, and the fictitious field $`b`$. While $`B`$ is space-time independent, $`b`$ is solenoid-like and time dependent.

The virtue of the fermion Chern-Simons description is that it suggests a novel mean-field theory. In this mean-field theory one lets the averaged $`b`$ ($`\overline{b}=2\varphi _0\overline{\rho }`$) cancel $`B`$. (Here $`\overline{\rho }`$ is the average electron/composite fermion density.) After the cancellation the composite fermions see zero magnetic field hence form a Fermi liquid. This mean-field theory is the basis of Ref..

In reality $`b`$ is space-time dependent, hence can not cancel $`B`$ exactly. Attempts to go beyond mean-field theory have not lead to a conclusive result. On this account HLR made a bold conjecture. They assert that the cancellation between $`b`$ and $`B`$ is not spoiled by the fluctuations beyond mean-field theory. Moreover they assert that the sole effect of the fluctuations is to renormalize the Fermi liquid parameters of composite fermions.

An consequence of HLR’s assertion is that the composite fermion Hall conductance vanish:

$$\sigma _{xy}^{CF}(\omega =0,𝐪=0)=0.$$
(1)   
Eq. (1) lies at the heart of the issue we shall discuss.

At this point it is useful to contrast the mean-field theory for $`\nu =1/2`$ with that for incompressible filling factors. The difference lies in the fact that for incompressible filling factors the mean-field theory predicts integer quantum Hall states, while for $`\nu =1/2`$ it predicts a Fermi liquid. Since the former is incompressible (hence does not have low energy $`b`$ fluctuations), the statement that $`b`$ cancels part of $`B`$ is asymptotically exact. The same can not be said about $`\nu =1/2`$, because the mean-field composite fermion state is compressible.   

II. The composite fermion Hall conductance   

Now let’s come to the main issue - the validity of Eq. (1). First let’s recall the following exact relation between the electron and composite fermion resistivity tensors ($`\rho _{\alpha \beta }`$ and $`\rho _{\alpha \beta }^{CF}`$):

$$\rho _{\alpha \beta }=\rho _{\alpha \beta }^{CF}+ϵ_{\alpha \beta }\frac{2h}{e^2}.$$
(2)   
In the above $`\rho _{\alpha \beta }^{CF}`$ is defined so that $`\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^{CF}(\rho _{\alpha \beta }^{CF})_{\alpha \beta }^1`$ is the conductivity deduced from the statistical-gauge-propagator-irreducible current-current correlation function of composite fermions.  As usual, in the presence of long-range interaction, the irreducible current-current correlation describes the particle response to the total (i.e. external+internal) field.

The physics of Eq. (2) is the fact that the Hall voltage seen by the composite fermions differs from that seen by the electrons by an amount equals to $`2\frac{h}{e^2}\times I`$. This difference comes from the fact that in the composite fermion representation (Fig.2) there is a flux current $`I_\varphi =2\frac{hc}{e}\frac{I}{e}`$ in addition to the charge current $`I`$. This flux current generates an extra transverse voltage equals to $`\frac{1}{c}I_\varphi =2\frac{h}{e^2}I`$.

As a result the longitudinal ($`V_L,V_L^{CF}`$) and Hall ($`V_H,V_H^{CF}`$) voltages seen by the electron and the composite fermion are related by

$`V_L=V_L^{CF}`$ (3)   
$`V_H=V_H^{CF}+2{\displaystyle \frac{h}{e^2}}I.`$ (4)   
After dividing both sides of Eq. (4) by $`I`$ one obtains Eq. (2).

Next, we discuss another argument that is important for setting up the issue concerning Eq. (1) - the particle-hole symmetry. In the absence of disorder, particle-hole symmetry emerges at $`\nu =1/2`$ after the projection onto the lowest Landau level. The presence of such symmetry implies that

$$\sigma _{xy}=\frac{e^2}{2h}.$$
(5)   
A caricature of the proof goes as follows. Upon the particle-hole conjugation the electron conductivity tensor transforms as

$`\sigma _{xx}(\nu )=\sigma _{xx}^h(1\nu )`$ (6)   
$`\sigma _{xy}(\nu )={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{h}}\sigma _{xy}^h(1\nu ).`$ (7)   
In the above $`\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^h`$ is the conductivity tensor of holes. The physical meaning of Eq.(7) is clear - after particle-hole conjugation the new vacuum is a full Landau level and the total current is the sum of the Hall current carried by the full Landau level and the current carried by the holes. At $`\nu =1/2`$ we have $`\nu =1\nu =1/2`$ and particle-hole symmetry. As the result $`\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^h(1\nu )=\sigma _{\alpha \beta }(\nu )`$, and hence Eq. (5) holds.

In the presence of disorder particle-hole symmetry can at most hold on average. If the probability distribution of the disorder potential satisfies $`P[V(𝐱)]=P[V(𝐱)]`$ we say that the disorder is particle-hole symmetric. It is important to note that while Eq. (2) holds for general disorder, Eq. (5) is only true when the disorder is particle-hole symmetric. In either case when there is disorder we need to interpret $`\sigma _{\alpha \beta }`$ and $`\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^{CF}`$ as the disorder-averaged conductivities.

Putting Eqs.(2) and (5) together we obtain

$$\frac{e^2}{2h}=\frac{\rho _{xy}}{\rho _{xx}^2+\rho _{xy}^2}=\frac{\rho _{xy}^{CF}+2\frac{h}{e^2}}{(\rho _{xx}^{CF})^2+(\rho _{xy}^{CF}+2\frac{h}{e^2})^2}.$$
(8)   
After some trivial arithmetic we obtain

$$\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=\frac{\rho _{xy}^{CF}}{(\rho _{xx}^{CF})^2+(\rho _{xy}^{CF})^2}=\frac{e^2}{2h},$$
(9)   
so long as

$$(\rho _{xx}^{CF})^2+(\rho _{xy}^{CF})^2>0.$$
(10)   
The problem lies in the fact that Eq. (1) and Eq. (9) do not agree.

Thus it seems that the notion of a Fermi liquid of composite fermions is incompatible with the particle-hole symmetry. At this juncture the readers might wonder why should we put so much weight on particle-hole symmetry. After all there is no reason that such symmetry must exist in real systems. To answer this question we quote a recent experimental result of Wong, Jiang and Schaff. In Ref. Wong et al measured $`\rho _{xx}`$ and $`\rho _{xy}`$ near $`\nu =1/2`$ in gated $`GaAs/AlGaAs`$ hetrostructures. What they found is that for a range of carrier densities both $`\rho _{xx}`$ and $`\rho _{xy}`$ are temperature dependent at $`\nu =1/2`$. However their temperature dependence is such that $`\sigma _{xy}=\rho _{xy}/(\rho _{xx}^2+\rho _{xy}^2)`$ is temperature independent and equals to $`e^2/2h`$. Even leaving aside the issue of what is causing $`\sigma _{xy}=e^2/2h`$, the very fact that $`\sigma _{xy}=e^2/2h`$ and $`\rho _{xx}0`$ is sufficient to give $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=e^2/2h`$. Recently Jiang has performed particle-hole transformation (Eq. (7)) on the data reported in Ref.. The result is entirely consistent with the presence of particle-hole symmetry.

Since the derivation of $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=e^2/2h`$ requires $`(\rho _{xx}^{CF})^2+(\rho _{xy}^{CF})^2>0`$, and in the absence of disorder $`(\rho _{xx}^{CF})^2+(\rho _{xy}^{CF})^2`$ could vanish, it has been suggested that perhaps $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=0`$ in the zero disorder limit. A difficulty with this scenario is that once accepting $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=0`$ for no disorder, one is forced to conclude that the composite fermion Hall conductance jumps from $`0`$ to $`\frac{e^2}{2h}`$ upon the introduction of infinitesimal amount of particle-hole symmetric disorder. Even more bothersome is the fact that such jump must persist at non-zero temperatures.

In any case our goal is to understand real systems for which Wong et al’s result suggests $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=\frac{e^2}{2h}`$. In the following we shall argue that $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=e^2/2h`$ implies that the (polarization) charge current carried by neutral fermions does not have off-diagonal correlation. Since the last statement is required by the fact that neutral fermions are globally neutral, we believe that Eq. (9) holds even in the absence of disorder.   

III. The neutral fermion (dipole) theory   

The physical idea behind the neutral fermion theory is as follow. Let us first consider a different problem where we have a group of distinguishable particles with identical mass at $`\nu =1/2`$. If these particles interact via a sufficiently short-range repulsive force, the ground state wavefunction will be

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{1/2}(z_1,\mathrm{},z_N)=\underset{(ij)}{}(z_iz_j)^2\mathrm{exp}\{\underset{k}{}|z_k|^2/4\}.$$
(11)   
Since Eq. (11) is the ground state in the absence of symmetry constraint, it is the lowest-energy solution.

Of course, the symmetric wavefunction in Eq.(11) is not allowed for electrons. Consequently electron’s Fermi statistics frustrates their energy minimization. To quantify this frustration we view each electron as a boson carrying one quantum of fictitious magnetic flux (Fig.2).

Were it not for the fictitious flux, the bosons would have condensed into the Laughlin liquid described by Eq.(11). Each fictitious flux quantum induces a quasiparticle of charge $`1/2`$ and statistics $`\pi /2`$. Due to global charge neutrality a quasihole of opposite charge are nucleated elsewhere. It turns out that the quasiholes also have statistics $`\pi /2`$.

Thus $`\nu =1/2`$ can be thought of as a liquid of $`\pm 1/2`$ charged anyons floating on top of a Bose quantum Hall liquid. In Refs. it is shown that the action for this defect-liquid is given by

$$S=S_{int}[𝐏]+id^2x𝑑t[2\pi 𝐏\times \dot{𝐏}4\pi 𝐏\times 𝐣].$$
(12)   
In the above $`𝐏`$ is the polarization density caused by the defects, and

$$𝐣(𝐱,t)=\underset{i}{}\dot{𝐫}_i(t)\delta (𝐱𝐫_i(t)),$$
(13)   
where $`\{𝐫_i(t)\}`$ are the coordinates of electrons. For reason to be discussed shortly we identify $`𝐣`$ as the composite fermion current. The partition function is given by

$$Z=D[\{𝐫_j\}]^{}D[𝐏]e^S,$$
(14)   
where $`D[\{𝐫_j\}]`$ denotes the fermion-Feynman path integral over $`\{𝐫_j(t)\}`$, and $`^{}D[𝐏]`$ denotes the function integral over $`𝐏(𝐱,t)`$ under the constraint

$$𝐏(𝐱,t)=\underset{i}{}\delta (𝐱𝐫_i(t))\overline{\rho }.$$
(15)   
In this theory the total electric current is the sum of the Hall current carried by the Bose quantum Hall liquid, and the polarization current of the defects. As the result

$`\sigma _{\alpha \beta }={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2h}}ϵ_{\alpha \beta }+\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^N.`$ (16)   
In Eq. (16) $`\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^N`$ is the conductivity due to the polarization current

$$j_\mu ^N=(𝐏,\dot{𝐏}).$$
(17)   
If we assume that the Coulomb interaction binds opposite-charged defects together, we arrive at a system of dipoles. The polarization due to such dipoles is

$$𝐏(𝐱,t)=\underset{i}{}𝐩_i(t)\delta (𝐱𝐫_i(t)),$$
(18)   
where $`𝐩_i`$ is the moment of the ith dipole. By substituting Eq. (18) into Eq. (12) and Eq. (15), we can derive the action and the constraint reported in Ref. and Ref.. It is important to note that unlike ordinary dipoles, these dipoles obey Fermi statistics.

Particle-hole symmetry also imposes a constraint on the dynamics of dipoles. Combining Eq. (5) and Eq. (16) we obtain

$$\sigma _{xy}^N=0.$$
(19)   
Eq. (19) is easy to understand – a liquid made up of (fermionic) dipoles can not see the external magnetic field, hence has no Hall conductance at $`𝐪=0`$.   

IV. The relation between the neutral fermion and the fermion Chern-Simons theories   

There has been considerable discussions about whether the neutral fermion and the fermion Chern-Simons theories are actually the same. There are good basis for such suspicion. For example the electron density-density correlation function obtained from neutral fermion theory is similar to that predicted by the fermion Chern-Simons theory. In addition, it has been shown recently that the neutral fermion theory suffers similar infrared problems as the fermion Chern-Simons theory. In the following we shall prove that the neutral fermion theory is in fact the fermion Chern-Simons theory formulated in the lowest Landau level.

To see that we define

$$𝐚4\pi \widehat{z}\times 𝐏.$$
(20)   
Substituting Eq. (20) into Eq. (12) and Eq. (15) we obtain

$$S=S_{int}[\frac{1}{4\pi }\times 𝐚]+id^2x𝑑t[\frac{1}{8\pi }𝐚\times \dot{𝐚}+𝐚𝐣],$$
(21)   
and

$$\frac{1}{4\pi }\times 𝐚(𝐱,t)=\underset{i}{}\delta (𝐱𝐫_i(t))\overline{\rho }.$$
(22)   
We recognize that Eqs.(21,22) are the first-quantized formulation of the fermion Chern-Simons theory in the temporal gauge ($`a_0=0`$). We note that there is no kinetic energy term $`𝑑t_i\frac{m}{2}|\dot{𝐫}|^2`$ because Eq. (21) is an action in the lowest Landau level.   

V. The composite fermion Hall conductance in the neutral fermion theory   

The equivalence of the neutral fermion and the fermion Chern-Simons theories does not say anything about the validity of Eq. (1). To address that issue let us concentrate on Eq. (21) and Eq. (22). In the following we shall demonstrate that due toEq. (22) there is no mixing between the longitudinal and transverse components of $`𝐚`$.

Let us write

$$𝐚=𝐚_T+\chi .$$
(23)   
By direct substitution it is simple to prove that in the absence of boundary

$$S=S[𝐚𝐚_T]id^2x𝑑t\chi [𝐣+\frac{1}{4\pi }\times \dot{𝐚_T}].$$
(24)   
The last term vanishes by Eq. (22) and the composite fermion current continuity equation.

Such no-mixing condition should be respected if we integrate out the composite fermions first. To make the connection to Ref. more transparent, let us restore the gauge freedom in Eq. (21). The new action read

$$S=S_{int}[\frac{1}{4\pi }\times 𝐚]+id^2x𝑑t[\frac{1}{8\pi }ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda }a_\mu _\nu a_\lambda +a_\mu j_\mu ].$$
(25)   
(We note that after restoring the gauge freedom, the constraint (Eq. (22)) is incorporated into the action.)

Now we are ready to integrate out the composite fermions. The resulting action will depend on $`a_\mu `$ alone. After gauge fixing, i.e. $`a_0=0`$, the result had better not contain a longitudinal and transverse mixing term. In order for that to be true a counter term must be generated by the composite fermions to cancel second term in Eq. (25). This requirement translated into $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=\frac{1}{4\pi }`$, or equivalently, $`\sigma _{xy}^{CF}=\frac{e^2}{2h}`$. The absence of the longitudinal and transverse mixing guarantees that the polarization current of neutral fermions fluctuates in a time-reversal-invariant fashion.   

VI. The mixed behavior of composite fermions   

So far we have been focusing on the composite fermion Hall conductance. It turns out that in order for the neutral fermion theory to describe experiments, the composite-fermion transverse current-current correlation $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{tt}(𝐪,\omega )`$ must be similar to that of a Fermi liquid. The puzzle is why despite their large Hall conductance, the composite fermions have some aspect (i.e. $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{tt}(𝐪,\omega )`$) of a Fermi liquid. In the following we offer an explanation.

Let us define

$$j_\mu ^{CM}j_\mu j_{L,\mu }^N.$$
(26)   
In the above $`j_\mu `$ is composite fermion current, and

$$j_{L,\mu }^N(𝐏_L,\dot{𝐏_L}),$$
(27)   
is the longitudinal component of the polarization current. According to Eq. (15)

$$j_0^{CM}=\overline{\rho }.$$
(28)   
As the result $`𝐣^{CM}`$ is a pure transverse current. In this way the composite fermion current is decomposed into a longitudinal and a transverse component:

$$j_\mu =j_\mu ^{CM}+j_{L,\mu }^N.$$
(29)   
The reason that the composite fermion current-current correlation shows mixed behavior is due to the fact that while $`<j_\mu ^{CM}j_\nu ^{CM}>`$ and $`<j_{L,\mu }^Nj_{L,\nu }^N>`$ have time-reversal invariant correlation at $`𝐪=0`$, $`<j_\mu ^{CM}j_{L,\nu }^N>`$ does not.

In summary, the conduction at $`\nu =1/2`$ is through two currents: a pure Hall current, and a polarization current. The polarization current is produced by a liquid of fermionic dipoles. Composite fermions are constituents of these dipoles. At long wavelength the dynamics of neutral fermion is zero-field-like, while that of composite fermions is not. Consequently we believe that the composite fermions do not form a Fermi liquid.   

Acknowledgement: DHL is supported in part by DOE via Los Alomos National Laboratory and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He thanks Steve Kivelson for valuable discussions.   

BIBLIOGRAPHY