Fractional Quantum Hall Effect in a Relativistic Field Theory

Abstract

We construct a class of 2+1 dimensional relativistic quantum field theories which exhibit the fractional quantum Hall effect in the infrared, both in the continuum and on the lattice. The UV completion consists of a perturbative U(1)×U(1) gauge theory with integer-charged fields, while the low energy spectrum consists of nontrivial topological phases supporting fractional currents, bulk anyonic excitations, and exotic phenomena such as a fractional quantum spin Hall effect. We show explicitly how fractionally charged chiral edge states emerge in the IR.