Electrostatics-induced breakdown of the integer quantum Hall effect in cavity QED

Abstract

We analyze the recently observed breakdown of the integer quantum Hall effect in a two-dimensional electron gas embedded in a metallic split-ring resonator. By accounting for both the quantized vacuum field and electrostatic boundary modifications, we identify a mechanism that could potentially explain this breakdown in terms of non-chiral edge channels arising from electrostatic boundary effects. For experimentally relevant geometries, a minimal single-electron model of this mechanism predicts characteristic signatures and energy scales consistent with those observed in experiments. These predictions can be directly tested against alternative, purely vacuum-induced explanations to shed further light on the origin of this puzzling phenomenon.