Symmetry breaking in Laughlin's state on a cylinder (Q2517971)

The article investigates the properties of the Laughlin's function (LF): a N-point function appearing in the study of fractional quantum Hall effect. The authors prove that, when the LF is appropriately modified to deal with 2D cylindrical geometry, the seemingly translational invariance is broken, resulting in a non-trivial periodicity, provided that the radius of the cylinder is small compared to the natural length. The proof relies on a crucial representation of Laughlin's wave function as a ``quantum polymer''.