Quantum Hall ferromagnetic phases in the Landau level N=0 of a graphene bilayer

Abstract

In a Bernal-stacked graphene bilayer, an electronic state in Landau level $% N=0$ is described by its guiding-center index $X$ (in the Landau gauge) and by its valley, spin, and orbital indices $\xi =\pm K,\sigma =\pm 1,$ and $% n=0,1.$ When Coulomb interaction is taken into account, the chiral two-dimensional electron gas (C2DEG) in this system can support a variety of quantum Hall ferromagnetic (QHF)\ ground states where the spins and/or valley pseudospins and/or orbital pseudospins collectively align in space. In this work, we give a comprehensive account of the phase diagram of the C2DEG at integer filling factors $\nu \in [-3,3] $ in Landau level N=0 when an electrical potential difference $\Delta_{B}$ between the two layers is varied. We consider states with or without layer, spin, or orbital coherence. For each phase, we discuss the behavior of the transport gap as a function of $\Delta_{B},$ the spectrum of collective excitations and the optical absorption due to orbital pseudospin-wave modes. We also study the effect of an external in-plane electric field on a coherent state that has both valley and spin coherence and show that it is possible, in such a state, to control the spin polarization by varying the strength of the external in-plane electric field.