Line junction in a quantum Hall system with two filling fractions

Abstract

We present a microscopic model for a line junction formed by counter or copropagating single mode quantum Hall edges corresponding to different filling factors. The ends of the line junction can be described by two possible current splitting matrices which are dictated by the conditions of both lack of dissipation and the existence of a linear relation between the bosonic fields. Tunneling between the two edges of the line junction then leads to a microscopic understanding of a phenomenological description of line junctions introduced some time ago. The effect of density-density interactions between the two edges is considered, and renormalization-group ideas are used to study how the tunneling parameter changes with the length scale. This leads to a power-law variation of the conductance of the line junction with the temperature. Depending on the strength of the interactions the line junction can exhibit two quite different behaviors. Our results can be tested in bent quantum Hall systems fabricated recently.