Pure scaling operators at the integer quantum Hall plateau transition

Abstract

Stationary wave functions at the transition between plateaus of the integer quantum Hall effect are known to exhibit multi-fractal statistics. Here we explore this critical behavior for the case of scattering states of the Chalker-Coddington model with point contacts. We argue that moments formed from the wave amplitudes of critical scattering states decay as pure powers of the distance between the points of contact and observation. These moments in the continuum limit are proposed to be correlations functions of primary fields of an underlying conformal field theory. We check this proposal numerically by finite-size scaling. We also verify the CFT prediction for a 3-point function involving two primary fields.