Paired states at 5/2: Particle-hole Pfaffian and particle-hole symmetry breaking

Abstract

We study Cooper pairing in the Dirac composite fermion (CF) system. The presence of the mass term in the Dirac CF description (which may simulate Landau level mixing), i.e., breaking of particle-hole (PH) symmetry in this system, is a necessary condition for the existence of a PH Pfaffian-like topological state. In the scope of the random-phase approximation (RPA) and hydrodynamic approach, we find some signatures of pairing at finite frequencies. Motivated by this insight, we extend our analysis to the case of a different but still Dirac quasiparticle (CF) representation, appropriate in the presence of a mass term, and discuss the likelihood of PH Pfaffian and Pfaffian pairings in general. On the basis of gauge field effects, we find for a small Dirac mass, an anti-Pfaffian or Pfaffian instability depending on the sign of mass, while for large mass (Landau level mixing), irrespective of its sign, we find a PH Pfaffian-like instability.