Observation of interaction-induced modulations of a quantum Hall liquid's area.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27396234.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms12184 and PMC identifier 4942580.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Studies of electronic interferometers, based on edge-channel transport in the quantum Hall effect regime, have been stimulated by the search for evidence of abelian and non-abelian anyonic statistics of fractional charges. In particular, the electronic Fabry-Pérot interferometer has been found to be Coulomb dominated, thus masking coherent Aharonov-Bohm interference patterns: the flux trapped within the interferometer remains unchanged as the applied magnetic field is varied, barring unobservable modulations of the interference area. Here we report on conductance measurements indicative of the interferometer's area 'breathing' with the variation of the magnetic field, associated with observable (a fraction of a flux quantum) variations of the trapped flux. This is the result of partial (controlled) screening of Coulomb interactions. Our results introduce a novel experimental tool for probing anyonic statistics.