Lesson plan
Laughlin wavefunction
In condensed matter physics, the Laughlin wavefunction is an ansatz, proposed by Robert Laughlin for the ground state of a two-dimensional electron gas placed in a uniform background magnetic field in the presence of a uniform jellium background when the filling factor of the lowest Landau level is \nu=1/n where n is an odd positive integer. It was constructed to explain the observation of the \nu=1/3 fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), and predicted the existence of additional \nu = 1/n states as well as quasiparticle excitations with fractional electric charge e/n , both of which were later experimentally observed. Laughlin received one third of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998 for this discovery.
Article summary
In condensed matter physics, the Laughlin wavefunction is an ansatz, proposed by Robert Laughlin for the ground state of a two-dimensional electron gas placed in a uniform background magnetic field in the presence of a uniform jellium background when the filling factor of the lowest Landau level is \nu=1/n where n is an odd positive integer. It was constructed to explain the observation of the \nu=1/3 fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), and predicted the existence of additional \nu = 1/n states as well as quasiparticle excitations with fractional electric charge e/n , both of which were later experimentally observed. Laughlin received one third of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998 for this discovery.
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Discussion questions
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- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
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