Edge waves in the quantum Hall effect

Abstract

I show that the bosonized form of the low energy edge excitations at the surface of a droplet of two-dimensional quantum Hall liquid can be understood in terms of coherent “ripplon” deformations in the shape of the droplet. When interacting with an electromagnetic field the resulting chiral boson theory has anomalies that are cancelled, via the Callan-Harvey mechanism, by contributions from the bulk. I also consider non-Abelian generalization of the bosonization that may be useful for chiral spin states.