Effective Chern–Simons theories of pfaffian and parafermionic quantum Hall states, and orbifold conformal field theories

Abstract

We present a pure Chern-Simons formulation of families of interesting Conformal Field Theories describing edge states of non-Abelian Quantum Hall states. These theories contain two Abelian Chern-Simons fields describing the electromagnetically charged and neutral sectors of these models, respectively. The charged sector is the usual Abelian Chern-Simons theory that successfully describes Laughlin-type incompressible fluids. The neutral sector is a 2+1-dimensional theory analogous to the 1+1-dimensional orbifold conformal field theories. It is based on the gauge group O(2) which contains a ${\bf Z}_2$ disconnected group manifold, which is the salient feature of this theory. At level q, the Abelian theory of the neutral sector gives rise to a ${\bf Z}_{2q}$ symmetry, which is further reduced by imposing the ${\bf Z}_2$ symmetry of charge-conjugation invariance. The remaining ${\bf Z}_q$ symmetry of the neutral sector is the origin of the non-Abelian statistics of the (fermionic) q-Pfaffian states.