Disorder driven collapse of the mobility gap and transition to an insulator in fractional quantum Hall effect

Abstract

We study the nu=1/3 quantum Hall state in presence of the random disorder. We calculate the topologically invariant Chern number, which is the only quantity known at present to unambiguously distinguish between insulating and current carrying states in an interacting system. The mobility gap can be determined numerically this way, which is found to agree with experimental value semiquantitatively. As the disorder strength increases towards a critical value, both the mobility gap and plateau width narrow continuously and ultimately collapse leading to an insulating phase.