Hall viscosity, orbital spin, and geometry: paired superfluids and quantum Hall systems

N. Read, E. H. Rezayi

Published 2010-08-01, updated 2011-06-02Version 2

The Hall viscosity, a non-dissipative transport coefficient analogous to Hall conductivity, is considered for quantum fluids in gapped or topological phases. The relation to mean orbital spin per particle discovered in previous work by one of us is elucidated with the help of examples, using the geometry of shear transformations and rotations. For non-interacting particles in a magnetic field, there are several ways to derive the result (even at non-zero temperature), including standard linear response theory. Arguments for the quantization, and the robustness of Hall viscosity to small changes in the Hamiltonian that preserve rotational invariance, are given. Numerical calculations of adiabatic transport are performed to check the predictions for quantum Hall systems, with excellent agreement for trial states. The coefficient of k^4 in the static structure factor is also considered, and shown to be exactly related to the orbital spin and robust to perturbations in rotation invariant systems also.