Pseudo-spin canting transition in bilayer quantum Hall ferromagnets: a self-charging capacitor

Abstract

For sufficiently strong in-plane magnetic field a $\nu_T=1$ bilayer quantum Hall pseudo-ferromagnet is expected to exhibit a soliton lattice. For sufficiently close layers and large in-plane field, we predict this incommensurate ``planar'' phase $P_I$ to undergo a reentrant pseudo-spin canting transition to an incommensurate state $C_I$, with a finite out-of-plane pseudo-magnetization component, corresponding to an interlayer charge imbalance in regions between solitons. At $T>0$ the transition is in the 2d compressible Ising universality class, and at T=0, the quantum transition is in heretofore unexplored universality class. The striking experimental signatures are the universal nonlinear charge-voltage and in-plane field relations, and the divergence of the differential bilayer capacitance at the transition, resulting in a bilayer capacitor that spontaneously charges itself, even in the absence of an applied interlayer voltage.