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Inside the quantum Hall effect

Nature Physics volume 11, pages 90–91 (2015)Cite this article

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Recent ultracold atom experiments reveal the wavefunction dynamics in the quantum Hall regime.

The quantum Hall effect has led to a deeper understanding of topological (or geometrical) effects in physics. It is related to buzzwords like Berry phase, Chern numbers, topological phases, Hofstadter's butterfly, anomalous velocity, localization and edge states. And it has found generalizations in the spin quantum Hall effect and topological insulators. In the field of ultracold atoms, many-body phenomena are now explored at a scale a thousand times enlarged and at atomic densities a billion times smaller than electron densities in solids. This provides not only unprecedented control over the preparation of the system, but also new ways of probing it and revealing microscopic details by directly observing the dynamics of the wavefunction.

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Figure 1: Quantized Hall conductance in three different regimes.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and Ray Ashoori for insightful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wolfgang Ketterle is in the Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA,

    Wolfgang Ketterle

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  1. Wolfgang Ketterle
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Correspondence to Wolfgang Ketterle.

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Ketterle, W. Inside the quantum Hall effect. Nature Phys 11, 90–91 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3231

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