Striped quantum Hall state in a half-filled Landau level

Abstract

Nature of the fractional quantum Hall state at Landau level filling factor 5/2 remains elusive despite intensive experimental and theoretical work. While the leading theoretical candidates are Moore-Read Pfaffian (Pf) and its particle-hole conjugate anti-Pfaffian (APf), neither received unambiguous experimental support. We show that a state that is intermediate between them, made of alternating stripes of Pf and APf in the bulk, is a viable candidate. Such a state is shown to be incompressible and thus a charge insulator in the bulk, but a heat conductor due to the presence of gapless neutral bulk modes. We argue that properties of such a state is consistent with existing numerical and experimental work, and discuss possible experimental probes of its presence.

5+4 pages, 7 figures