Fermi hypernetted-chain study of half-filled Landau levels with broken rotational symmetry

Abstract

We investigate broken rotational symmetry (BRS) states at half-filling of the valence Landau level (LL). We generalize Rezayi-Read's (RR) composite fermion (CF) trial wavefunctions to include anisotropic coupling of the flux quanta to electrons, thus generating a nematic order in the underlying CF liquid. Using the Fermi hypernetted-chain (FHNC) method which readily gives results in the thermodynamic limit, we determine in detail the properties of these states. By using the anisotropic pair distribution and static structure functions we determine the correlation energy and find that, as expected, RR's state is stable in the lowest LL, whereas BRS states may occur at half-filling of higher LLs, with possible connection to the recently discovered quantum Hall liquid crystals.