Quasiparticle tunneling in the Moore-Read fractional quantum Hall state

Abstract

In fractional quantum Hall systems, quasiparticles of fractional charge can tunnel between the edges at a quantum point contact. Such tunneling (or backscattering) processes contribute to charge transport and provide information on both the charge and statistics of the quasiparticles involved. Here, we study quasiparticle tunneling in the Moore-Read state, in which quasiparticles of charges $e/4$ (non-Abelian) and $e/2$ (Abelian) may coexist and both contribute to edge transport. On a disk geometry, we calculate the matrix elements for $e/2$ and $e/4$ quasiholes to tunnel through the bulk of the Moore-Read state, in an attempt to understand their relative importance. We find that the tunneling amplitude for charge $e/2$ quasihole is exponentially smaller than that for charge $e/4$ quasihole, and the ratio between them can be (partially) attributed to their charge difference. We find that including long-range Coulomb interaction only has a weak effect on the ratio. We discuss briefly the relevance of these results to recent tunneling and interferometry experiments at filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}=5/2$.