Spin Hamiltonian for the quantum Hall state in a ladder geometry

Abstract

The first calculation of the true ground state of the parent Hamiltonian proposed by Laughlin [Laughlin, Ann. Phys. 191, 163 (1989)] for the $m=2$ fractional quantum Hall state on a torus is presented. Laughlin's model is generalized to the case of a system in a ladder geometry and rewritten in terms of familiar spin-spin interactions, demonstrating that the model corresponds to a long-range Heisenberg Hamiltonian with an additional four-site interaction. The exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian is performed to extract the energies, correlation functions, sublattice magnetization, and overlap with the quantum Hall state. Our results confirm the recent work showing that the model is not exact [Schroeter, Ann. Phys. 310, 155 (2004)] and also show it to be not without merit: the overlap between the quantum Hall (QH) state and exact ground state approaches the significant value of 0.83 in the limit that the ladder becomes infinitely long.