Quantum melting a Wigner crystal into Hall liquids

Abstract

Recent experiments have shown that, counterintuitively, applying a magnetic field to a Wigner crystal can induce quantum Hall effects. In this Letter, we use variational Monte Carlo to show that a magnetic field can melt zero-field Wigner crystals into integer quantum Hall liquids. This melting originates from quantum oscillations in the liquid's ground state energy, which develops downward cusps at integer filling factors due to incompressibility. Our calculations establish a range of densities in which this quantum melting transition occurs.