Fractional charge revealed in computer simulations of resonant tunneling in the fractional quantum Hall regime

Abstract

The concept of fractional charge is central to the theory of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE). Here I use exact diagonalization as well as configuration space renormalization (CSR) to study finite clusters which are large enough to contain two independent edges. I analyze the conditions of resonant tunneling between the two edges. The "computer experiment" reveals a periodic sequence of resonant tunneling events consistent with the experimentally observed fractional quantization of electric charge in units of e/3 and e/5.