Evidence for chiral graviton modes in fractional quantum Hall liquids.

Abstract

Exotic physics could emerge from interplay between geometry and correlation. In fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states¹, novel collective excitations called chiral graviton modes (CGMs) are proposed as quanta of fluctuations of an internal quantum metric under a quantum geometry description^2-5. Such modes are condensed-matter analogues of gravitons that are hypothetical spin-2 bosons. They are characterized by polarized states with chirality^6-8 of +2 or -2, and energy gaps coinciding with the fundamental neutral collective excitations (namely, magnetorotons^9,10) in the long-wavelength limit. However, CGMs remain experimentally inaccessible. Here we observe chiral spin-2 long-wavelength magnetorotons using inelastic scattering of circularly polarized lights, providing strong evidence for CGMs in FQH liquids. At filling factor v = 1/3, a gapped mode identified as the long-wavelength magnetoroton emerges under a specific polarization scheme corresponding to angular momentum S = -2, which persists at extremely long wavelength. Remarkably, the mode chirality remains -2 at v = 2/5 but becomes the opposite at v = 2/3 and 3/5. The modes have characteristic energies and sharp peaks with marked temperature and filling-factor dependence, corroborating the assignment of long-wavelength magnetorotons. The observations capture the essentials of CGMs and support the FQH geometrical description, paving the way to unveil rich physics of quantum metric effects in topological correlated systems.