Continuous transitions between composite Fermi liquid and Landau Fermi liquid: A route to fractionalized Mott insulators

Abstract

One of the most successful theories of a non-Fermi-liquid metallic state is the composite Fermi-liquid (CFL) theory of the half-filled Landau level. In this paper, we study continuous quantum phase transitions out of the CFL state and into a Landau Fermi liquid, in the limit of no disorder and fixed particle number. This transition can be induced by tuning the bandwidth of the Landau level relative to the interaction energy, for instance through an externally applied periodic potential. We find a transition to the Landau Fermi liquid through a gapless Mott insulator with a Fermi surface of neutral fermionic excitations. In the presence of spatial symmetries, we also find a direct continuous transition between the CFL and the Landau Fermi liquid. The transitions have a number of characteristic observable signatures, including the presence of two crossover temperature scales, resistivity jumps, and vanishing compressibility. When the composite fermions are paired instead, our results imply quantum critical points between various non-Abelian topological states, including the ν=1/2 Moore-Read Pfaffian [Ising × U(1) topological order], a version of the Kitaev B phase (Ising topological order), and paired electronic superconductors. To study such transitions, we use a projective construction of the CFL, which goes beyond the conventional framework of flux attachment to include a broader set of quantum fluctuations. These considerations suggest a possible route to fractionalized Mott insulators by starting with fractional quantum Hall states and tuning the Landau-level bandwidth.