Skip to Content

*CANCELLED*Dynamics of dispersing anyons in moiré flat bands: emergent phases and microscopic origin

The discovery of fractional quantum anomalous Hall (FQAH) states in moiré materials has opened the possibility of realizing phases of dispersing and interacting anyons. In this talk, I will show how anyon dispersion and binding arise microscopically in FQAH states and lead to striking experimental consequences. I will first argue that the interplay of anyon dispersion and disorder-induced localization provides a natural explanation for the recent observation of superconductivity and re-entrant integer quantum Hall states upon doping the 2/3 FQAH state in twisted MoTe₂: doping anyons drives plateau transitions of composite fermions into integer quantum Hall states, realizing either a superconducting phase or a re-entrant integer quantum Hall phase.

Going beyond long-distance effective theory, I will then introduce a controlled and scalable approach, based on projection onto the space of Laughlin quasiholes, that captures anyon energetics at short distances and enables accurate computation of both single-particle dispersion and multi-anyon binding. Applied to twisted MoTe₂, the theory predicts a quasihole bandwidth of order 1 meV, indicating that itinerant-anyon physics should be experimentally relevant. Applied to Laughlin quasiholes with screened Coulomb interactions, it predicts bound-state formation when the screening length is comparable to or smaller than the magnetic length — remarkably, despite both the bare electron-electron interaction and the quasihole electrostatic potential being purely repulsive. The binding is a Berry-phase effect, driven by oscillations in the quasihole density profile invisible at the classical level. I will map out a sequence of phases — free e/3 anyons, paired 2e/3 bound states, three-anyon charge-e clusters, and larger composites — and discuss implications for charge-imaging experiments and the phase diagram of itinerant anyons in FQAH materials.

Host: Yong Baek Kim
Event series  Toronto Quantum Matter Seminars