Electron Spectral Functions of Reconstructed Quantum Hall Edges

Abstract

During the reconstruction of the edge of a quantum Hall liquid, Coulomb interaction energy is lowered through the change in the structure of the edge. We use theory developed earlier by one of the authors [K. Yang, Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 036802 (2003)] to calculate the electron spectral functions of a reconstructed edge, and study the consequences of the edge reconstruction for the momentum-resolved tunneling into the edge. It is found that additional excitation modes that appear after the reconstruction produce distinct features in the energy and momentum dependence of the spectral function, which can be used to detect the presence of edge reconstruction.