Spatially Ordered Fractional Quantum Hall States

Abstract

Fractional quantum Hall liquids can accomodate various degrees of spatial ordering. The most likely scenarios are a Hall hexatic, Hall smectic, and Hall crystal, in which respectively orientational, one--dimensional translational, and two--dimensional translational symmetries are broken. I derive the long--wavelength properties of these phases and the transitions between them using the Chern--Simons Landau--Ginzburg mapping, which relates them to spatially ordered superfluids. The effects of coupling to a periodic or anisotropic ``substrate'' (e.g. a gate array) are also discussed.