Tunneling density of states, correlation energy, and spin polarization in the fractional quantum Hall regime

Abstract

We derive exact sum-rules that relate the tunneling density of states (TDOS) of spinful electrons in the fractional quantum Hall (FQH) regime to the spin-dependent many body ground state correlation energy. Because the tunneling process is spin-conserving, the 2D (two-dimensional) to 2D tunneling current $I$ at a given bias voltage $V$ in a spin-polarized system is a sum of majority and minority spin contributions. The sum rules can be used to define spin-dependent gaps that we associate with peaks in 2D to 2D tunneling $I-V$ curves. We discuss different scenarios of tunneling between layers at different fillings in relation to our sum rules. We comment on what recent tunneling experiments say about spin-dependent correlations in light of our sum rules, and propose additional measurements that could provide more specific experimental estimates of spin-dependent correlation energies.