Effective field theory for fractional quantum Hall systems nearν=5/2

Abstract

We propose an effective field theory (EFT) of fractional quantum Hall systems near the filling fraction $\nu=5/2$ that flows to pertinent IR candidate phases, including non-abelian Pfaffian, anti-Pfaffian, and particle-hole Pfaffian states (Pf, APf, and PHPf). Our EFT has a 2+1$d$ O(2)$_{2,L}$ Chern-Simons gauge theory coupled to four Majorana fermions by a discrete charge conjugation gauge field, with Gross-Neveu-Yukawa-Higgs terms. Including deformations via a Higgs condensate and fermion mass terms, we can map out a phase diagram with tunable parameters, reproducing the prediction of the recently-proposed percolation picture and its gapless topological quantum phase transitions. Our EFT captures known features of both gapless and gapped sectors of time-reversal-breaking domain walls between Pf and APf phases. Moreover, we find that Pf$\mid$APf domain walls have higher tension than domain walls in the PHPf phase. Then the former, if formed, may transition to the energetically-favored PHPf domain walls; this could, in turn, help further induce a bulk transition to PHPf.