Model for Dissipative Conductance in Fractional Quantum Hall States

Abstract

We present a model of dissipative transport in the fractional quantum Hall regime. Our model takes account of tunneling through saddle points in the effective potential for excitations created by impurities. We predict the temperature range over which activated behavior is observed and explain why this range nearly always corresponds to around a factor two in temperature in both integer quantum Hall and fractional quantum Hall systems. We identify the ratio of the gap observed in the activated behavior and the temperature of the inflection point in the Arrhenius plot as an important diagnostic for determining the importance of tunneling in real samples.