Modified Coulomb gas construction of quantum Hall states from non-unitary conformal field theories

M. V. Milovanović, Th. Jolicœ ur, I. Vidanović

Published 2009-02-10, updated 2009-10-26Version 2

Some fractional quantum Hall states observed in experiments may be described by first-quantized wavefunctions with special clustering properties like the Moore-Read Pfaffian for filling factor nu = 5/2. This wavefunction has been constructed by constructing correlation functions of a two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) involving a free boson and a Majorana fermion. By considering other CFTs many other clustered states have been proposed as candidate FQH states under appropriate circumstances. It is believed that the underlying CFT should be unitary if one wants to describe an incompressible i.e. gapped liquid state. We show that by changing the way one derives the wavefunction from its parent CFT it is possible to obtain an incompressible candidate state when starting from a non-unitary parent. The construction mimics a global change of parameters in the phase space of the electron system. We explicit our construction in the case of the so-called Gaffnian state (a state for filling factor 2/5) and also for the Haldane-Rezayi state (a spin-singlet state at filling 1/2).