Partial equilibration of integer and fractional edge channels in the thermal quantum Hall effect

Abstract

Since the charged mode is much faster than the neutral modes on quantum Hall edges at large filling factors, the edge may remain out of equilibrium in thermal conductance experiments. This sheds light on the observed imperfect quantization of the thermal Hall conductance at $\nu=8/3$ and can increase the observed thermal conductance by two quanta at $\nu=8/5$. Under certain unlikely but not impossible assumptions, this might also reconcile the observed thermal conductance at $\nu=5/2$ with not only the PH-Pfaffian order but also the anti-Pfaffian order.