Pairing Effects in the Edge of Paired Quantum Hall States

Abstract

We study pairing effects in the edge states of paired fractional quantum Hall states by using persistent edge currents as a probe. We give the grand partition functions for edge excitations of paired states (Pfaffian, Haldane-Rezayi, 331) coupling to an Aharanov-Bohm flux and derive the exact formulas of the persistent edge current. We show that the currents are flux periodic with the unit flux $ϕ_0=hc/e$. At low temperatures, they exhibit anomalous oscillations in their flux dependence. The shapes of the functions depend on the bulk topological order. They converge to the sawtooth function with period $ϕ_0/2$ at zero temperature, which indicates pair condensation. This phenomenon provides an interesting bridge between superconductivity in 2+1 dimensions and superconductivity in 1+1 dimensions. We propose experiments of measuring the persistent current at even denominator plateau in single or double layer systems to test our predictions.