English

Thermal and viscous contrast in quantum Hall scanning-probe images

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2026-07-15 v1

Abstract

Quantum Hall scanning images are often read as maps of a local potential, temperature, or viscosity, whereas a probe records a finite-resolution functional of a transport operator. We formulate this functional using Landau-level projection, a particle-number Ward identity, magnetization-subtracted thermoelectric transport, a hydrodynamic Stokes-Ohm inversion, and finite-tip Fisher information. Two results follow in complementary transport regimes. In the strong-field, sharp-Landau-level regime, the defect-induced thermoelectric and electrical Hall contrasts of a smooth scalar defect obey δαxytr/δσxy=(Ecμ)/(eT)\delta\alpha_{xy}^{tr}/\delta\sigma_{xy}=(E_c-\mu)/(eT). At the retained long-wavelength order, the orbital form factor, defect geometry, and common tip kernel cancel after the heat-magnetization current is removed, so the zero of the thermoelectric contrast is pinned by energy weighting at Ec=μE_c=\mu rather than by defect shape. In the hydrodynamic regime, the measurable q2q^2 tensor amplitudes mix Hall, longitudinal, transverse, boundary, electrothermal, and kinetic channels, so a Hall-odd image is not by itself a Hall-viscosity measurement. For a representative graphene geometry, a Schur-complement fit against the stated nuisance library yields a conditional one-standard-deviation sensitivity of approximately 68 square nanometers at SNR0 = 200, with boundary slip the limiting nuisance. The framework turns visual interpretation of quantum Hall nanoscopy into a quantitative observability test for electrical, thermoelectric, and viscous response channels.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.16315,
  title  = {Thermal and viscous contrast in quantum Hall scanning-probe images},
  author = {P. Shubham Parashar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.16315},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Comments: 18 pages, 5 figures; includes Supplemental Material