Charge Density Wave-Assisted Tunneling Between Hall Edge States

Abstract

We study the intra-planar tunneling between quantum Hall samples separated by a quasi one-dimensional barrier, induced through the interaction of edge degrees of freedom with the charge density waves of a Hall crystal defined in a parallel layer. A field theory formulation is set up in terms of bosonic (2+1)-dimensional excitations coupled to (1+1)-dimensional fermions. Parity symmetry is broken at the quantum level by the confinement of soliton-antisoliton pairs near the tunneling region. The usual Peierls argument allows to estimate the critical temperature $T_c$, so that for $T > T_c$ mass corrections due to longitudinal density fluctuations disappear from the edge spectrum. We compute the gap dependence upon the random global phase of the pinned charge density wave, as well as the effects of a voltage bias applied across the tunneling junction.