Spin textures, screening and excitations in dirty quantum Hall ferromagnets

Abstract

We study quantum Hall ferromagnets in the presence of a random electrostatic impurity potential. Describing these systems with a classical non-linear sigma model and using analytical estimates supported by results from numerical simulations, we examine the nature of the ground state as a function of disorder strength, $\Delta$, and deviation, $\delta \nu$, of the average Landau level filling factor from unity. Screening of an impurity potential requires distortions of the spin configuration, and in the absence of Zeeman coupling there is a disorder-driven, zero-temperature phase transition from a ferromagnet at small $\Delta$ and $|\delta \nu|$ to a spin glass at larger $\Delta$ or $|\delta \nu|$. We examine ground-state response functions and excitations.