English

Fractional Quantum Hall Effect via Holography: Chern-Simons, Edge States, and Hierarchy

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-07-22 v3 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

We present three holographic constructions of fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) via string theory. The first model studies edge states in FQHE using supersymmetric domain walls in N=6 Chern-Simons theory. We show that D4-branes wrapped on CP^1 or D8-branes wrapped on CP^3 create edge states that shift the rank or the level of the gauge group, respectively. These holographic edge states correctly reproduce the Hall conductivity. The second model presents a holographic dual to the pure U(N)_k (Yang-Mills-)Chern-Simons theory based on a D3-D7 system. Its holography is equivalent to the level-rank duality, which enables us to compute the Hall conductivity and the topological entanglement entropy. The third model introduces the first string theory embedding of hierarchical FQHEs, using IIA string on C^2/Z_n.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0901.0924,
  title  = {Fractional Quantum Hall Effect via Holography: Chern-Simons, Edge States, and Hierarchy},
  author = {Mitsutoshi Fujita and Wei Li and Shinsei Ryu and Tadashi Takayanagi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0901.0924},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

36 pages, 6 figures; v2: with an improved derivation of Hall conductivity in section 3.2, typo corrections, and additional references; v3: explanations and comments added

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:58:28.808Z