Phenomenological theory of heat transport in the fractional quantum Hall effect

Abstract

Experimental evidence shows that thermal transport in fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states involves energy loss to external degrees of freedom. However, so far, theory has disregarded this loss. Here, the authors construct and solve a phenomenological theory for heat transport in FQH states in the presence of these losses. The authors show that in contrast to the electric Hall conductance, the thermal Hall conductance is sensitive to this loss. They find the conditions for experimental extraction of the universal thermal Hall conductance for a FQH state, and the way this value quantitatively changes when the energy losses are not negligible.