Photo-assisted shot noise in the fractional quantum Hall regime

Abstract

The effect of an ac perturbation on the shot noise of a fractional quantum Hall fluid is studied at finite temperature. For a normal metal, it is known that the zero-frequency noise derivative exhibits steps as a function of bias voltage. In contrast, at Laughlin fractions, the backscattering noise exhibits evenly spaced singularities, which are reminiscent of tunneling density-of-states singularities for quasiparticles. The spacing is determined by the quasiparticle charge $\nu e$ and the ratio of the dc bias with respect to the drive frequency. Photo-assisted transport can thus be considered as a probe for effective charges of the quantum Hall effect.