# REFERENCES

Comment on “Activation Gaps and Mass Enhancement of Composite Fermions”

In a recent Letter, Park and Jain presented results of extensive Monte Carlo calculations of gaps of polarized fractional quantum Hall states at filling fractions $`\nu =1/3,2/5,3/7,4/9`$. In particular, they addressed the effects on these excitation energies of the finite width of the electronic wave function (wf) in the direction perpendicular to the interface. Their findings appeared to demonstrate that finite width corrections alone lead to agreement between experimental and theoretical values for these energy gaps.

This agreement depends crucially on the choice of the width parameter $`\lambda `$ in the model interaction

$$V(r)=\frac{e^2}{ϵ\sqrt{r^2+\lambda ^2}},$$
(1)   
that was used to take account of the width of the interface wf in an approximate manner. To fix $`\lambda `$, Park and Jain used results based on calculations of interface wf’s by Ortalano et al., by fitting the gap at $`\nu =1/3`$ for a system of 6 electrons . This fit leads to a value $`\lambda =11.7nm`$ for an electronic density $`n_S=2.3\times 10^{11}cm^2`$ of the sample used by Du et al.. This value for $`\lambda `$ leads to the above mentioned agreement between theoretical and experimental gap values (cf. Figure 3 in ).

The main problem with this way of fixing $`\lambda `$ is that there are indications that the work of Ortalano et al. is not reliable: Analysis of the tabulated values of the Haldane pseudopotentials reveals serious inconsistencies and the calculation of energy gaps is not explained in enough detail to allow a verification of the results. Furthermore, as will be discussed below, the value of $`\lambda `$ which fits the gap results does not appear reasonable, although Park and Jain claim that it is.

To see this we employ as interface wf the Fang-Howard variational wf $`\mathrm{\Psi }(z)\mathrm{exp}(bz/2)`$. The variational parameter $`b`$ is given by

$$b=\left(\frac{48\pi m^{}e^2(n_{depl}+\frac{11}{32}n_S)}{ϵ\mathrm{}^2}\right)^{1/3},$$
(2)   
where $`m^{}`$ is the effective mass in the direction normal to the interface and $`n_{depl}`$ is the charge density in the depletion layer. Using the values for GaAs, a dielectric constant $`ϵ=12.7,m^{}=0.067m_0`$ and neglecting $`n_{depl}`$, we obtain $`1/b=3.1nm`$ at $`n_S=2.3\times 10^{11}cm^2.`$ As gaps at filling factors $`1/3\nu 2/3,`$ are basically determined by the Haldane pseudopotential $`V_m`$ for angular momentum $`m=1`$, the best way to fix $`\lambda `$ is by requiring that $`V_1`$ is reproduced when calculated with the model interaction (1). Using the Fang-Howard wf with $`1/b=3.1nm`$, we obtain $`V_1=0.3712e^2/(ϵ\mathrm{}_0)`$ at $`\nu =1/3`$ (i.e. at a magnetic field $`B=28.5T`$, and a magnetic length $`\mathrm{}_0=4.8nm`$). This $`V_1`$-value is reproduced using the model interaction (1) with $`\lambda /\mathrm{}_0=1.19`$, i.e. $`\lambda =5.7nm`$, about half the value used by Park and Jain .

The question of wf width has been explored experimentally by Willett et al. . By measuring the energy difference between the first and second subband, they obtained a more accurate estimate of the subband wf’s with the result $`1/b=3.9nm`$. As that sample had a smaller density $`n_S=1.65\times 10^{11}cm^2`$, and assuming $`b`$ scales as $`n_S^{1/3}`$, we obtain a value $`1/b=3.5nm`$ for the sample considered by Park and Jain, only about 10 percent larger than the value based on equation (2). Again requiring that $`V_1`$ be reproduced by the model interaction, at $`\nu =1/3`$, we obtain $`\lambda /\mathrm{}_0=1.34`$, still very much smaller than the value $`\lambda /\mathrm{}_0=2.5`$ used by Park and Jain. On the basis of these results, we feel that the value of $`\lambda =11.7nm`$ used by Park and Jain is too large by about a factor of two.

Clearly, for $`\lambda /\mathrm{}_01.3`$ the gap reduction due to the width of the interface wf is only about half of what Park and Jain obtained. Thus, a significant difference between theoretical and experimental gap values remains. However, effects of disorder and Landau level mixing are expected to further reduce the theoretical gap results.

A last comment regards the use of the model interaction (1). While it is possible to fix $`\lambda `$ such that the pseudopotential coefficient $`V_m`$ is reproduced exactly for $`m=1`$, those for $`m>1`$ when calculated with the model interaction, are generally too large, especially for large $`\lambda `$ . Consequently, since incompressibility of polarized states in the range $`1/3\nu 2/3`$ depends on the ratio $`V_3/V_1`$ not becoming too large, a phase transition to compressible states may be predicted erroneously if the model interaction (1) is used (cf. Figure 3 in ). Realistic interactions based on appropriate interface wf’s must be used for a reliable study of this question . Rudolf H. Morf   
Condensed Matter Theory,   
Paul Scherrer Institute,   
CH-5232 Villigen, Switzerland