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# Waves and Instabilities in Accretion Disks: MHD Spectroscopic Analysis

## 1 Hydromagnetic stability for stationary equilibria

Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) spectroscopy (Goedbloed et al., 1994) entails the ability to calculate all MHD perturbations accessible to a particular magnetized plasma configuration (the forward spectral problem), and holds the promise to use the MHD spectrum to diagnose the internal plasma state (the backward spectral problem). In this letter, we predict all MHD waves and instabilities for magnetized accretion disks.

To analyse the entire MHD spectrum of gravitationally and thermally stratified, rotating, magnetized equilibrium configurations, we use the formalism of Frieman and Rotenberg (1960). The equation of motion for the Lagrangian displacement $`𝝃`$ of a fluid element is

$$\rho \frac{^2𝝃}{t^2}+2\rho \text{v}\frac{𝝃}{t}+\mathrm{\Pi }\text{B}\text{Q}\text{Q}\text{B}+(\rho 𝝃)\text{g}\left[\rho 𝝃(\text{v})\text{v}\rho \text{v}\text{v}𝝃\right]=0,$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }=𝝃p\gamma p𝝃+\text{B}\text{Q}`$ measures the Eulerian perturbation of total pressure, $`\text{Q}=\times (𝝃\times \text{B})`$ is the Eulerian perturbation of the magnetic field B, and g is the gravitational acceleration. Equation (1) describes all waves supported by a time-invariant equilibrium with density $`\rho `$, pressure $`p`$, flow field v, gravity g, and B; $`\gamma `$ is the ratio of specific heats. We specify our analysis to one-dimensional (1D) axisymmetric stationary equilibria satisfying

$$\left(p+\frac{B_\theta ^2+B_z^2}{2}\right)^{}=\rho \left(\frac{v_\theta ^2}{r}\frac{G_cM_{}}{r^2}\right)\frac{B_\theta ^2}{r},$$
(2)
where the prime denotes differentiation with respect to the radial coordinate $`r`$ from a $`(r,\theta ,z)`$ cylindrical system. Hence, we concentrate on wave motions about an equilibrium where centrifugal forces, gravity, pressure gradients and magnetic forces balance. The one-dimensionality limits the generality by representing the gravitational influence of a central body of mass $`M_{}`$ by a line source $`\text{g}(r)=G_cM_{}/r^2\widehat{𝐞}_r`$, but this at most introduces a vertical wavelength cut-off on the validity of our results.

The equilibrium symmetry allows for a decoupled analysis of individual normal mode solutions where $`𝝃(r,\theta ,z,t)=(\xi _r(r),\xi _\theta (r),\xi _z(r))\mathrm{exp}i(m\theta +kz\omega t)`$. For the radially varying magnetized equilibria, it is instructive to use a field line projection which introduces the basic variables $`\widehat{\chi }=r\xi _r`$, $`\widehat{\eta }=ir\left(\text{B}/B\times \widehat{𝐞}_r\right)𝝃`$ and $`\widehat{\zeta }=ir\text{B}/B𝝃`$. It is then a matter of algebra to turn the Frieman-Rotenberg system (1) into

$`[\left(\begin{array}{ccc}rD_r\frac{\gamma p+B^2}{r}D_rF^2r\left(\frac{B_\theta ^2}{r^2}\right)^{}\hfill & rD_r\frac{\gamma p+B^2}{r}\frac{G}{B}2k\frac{B_\theta B}{r}& \hfill rD_r\frac{\gamma p}{r}\frac{F}{B}\\ \frac{G}{B}\left(\gamma p+B^2\right)D_r2k\frac{B_\theta B}{r}\hfill & \left(\gamma p+B^2\right)\frac{G^2}{B^2}F^2& \hfill \gamma p\frac{GF}{B^2}\\ \gamma p\frac{F}{B}D_r\hfill & \gamma p\frac{GF}{B^2}& \hfill \gamma p\frac{F^2}{B^2}\end{array}\right)`$ (6)
$`+\left(\begin{array}{ccc}3\frac{G_cM_{}}{r^3}\rho \hfill & \rho V_g\frac{G}{B}& \hfill \rho V_g\frac{F}{B}\\ \rho V_g\frac{G}{B}\hfill & 0& \hfill 0\\ \rho V_g\frac{F}{B}\hfill & 0& \hfill 0\end{array}\right)+2\rho {\displaystyle \frac{v_\theta }{r}}\stackrel{~}{\omega }\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0\hfill & \frac{B_z}{B}& \hfill \frac{B_\theta }{B}\\ \frac{B_z}{B}\hfill & 0& \hfill 0\\ \frac{B_\theta }{B}\hfill & 0& \hfill 0\end{array}\right)+\rho \stackrel{~}{\omega }^2\text{I}\left]\right(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{\chi }\\ \widehat{\eta }\\ \widehat{\zeta }\end{array})`$ $`=0.`$ (16)
In this system, the radial derivative operator is denoted by $`D_r`$, while the parallel gradient operator becomes the algebraic factor $`Fi\text{B}=mB_\theta /r+kB_z`$. Furthermore, $`GmB_z/rkB_\theta `$ and $`V_gv_\theta ^2/rG_cM_{}/r^2`$. The latter measures the deviation from a Keplerian disk. The terms linearly proportional to the Doppler shifted frequency $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }=\omega mv_\theta /rkv_z`$ represent the Coriolis effect. For static cylindrical equilibria without external gravitational field, this representation of the eigenvalue problem was introduced in Goedbloed (1975).

From Equation (16), one can immediately obtain the Alfvén and slow continuous parts of the ideal MHD spectrum by looking at extreme localization of the perturbations on single flux surfaces ($`D_r\mathrm{}`$). The first component can then be integrated at once, and, when inserted in the second and third, yields $`A\widehat{\eta }=0`$ and $`S\widehat{\zeta }=0`$, respectively. The Alfvén continuum corresponds to singular solutions $`\widehat{\eta }\delta (rr_A)`$, where $`A(r_A)(\rho \stackrel{~}{\omega }^2F^2)(r_A)=0`$. The slow modes are given by $`\widehat{\zeta }\delta (rr_S)`$, where $`S(r_S)\left(\rho \stackrel{~}{\omega }^2(\gamma p+B^2)\gamma pF^2\right)(r_S)=0`$. Due to the radial variation of the equilibrium and the Doppler shift, four continuous ranges of real eigenfrequencies are found. With the cluster points $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }=\pm \mathrm{}`$ for the fast subspectrum, these Doppler shifted forward and backward Alfvén and slow continua determine the three-fold structure of the MHD spectrum. These continua are not influenced by gravity or rotation.

An interesting limit of this system has obtained a lot of attention in the accretion disk literature. Considering a weakly magnetized accretion disk, it is possible to show that the combination of differential rotation with a weak magnetic field introduces a linear ‘weak-field shearing’ MHD instability (Balbus and Hawley, 1991). As recently discussed in the review by Balbus and Hawley (1998), one can derive a sixth order dispersion relation governing local linear disturbances with purely vertical wave numbers $`\text{k}=k\widehat{𝐞}_z`$ in disks where the restricted hydrodynamic equilibrium relation $`V_g=0`$ holds. This dispersion relation for axisymmetric $`m=0`$ modes is formally found from Equation (16) by setting $`D_r=0`$, neglecting all curvature terms where $`B_\theta `$ appears explicitly, and by using $`V_g=0`$. It can then be written as

$`\left(\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2{\displaystyle \frac{F^2}{\rho }}\right)\left(\stackrel{~}{\omega }^4k^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2(c_s^2+{\displaystyle \frac{B^2}{\rho }})+{\displaystyle \frac{F^2}{\rho }}k^2c_s^2\right)`$
$`\left[\kappa ^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }^4\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2\left(k^2\kappa ^2(c_s^2+{\displaystyle \frac{B_\theta ^2}{\rho }})3{\displaystyle \frac{G_cM_{}}{r^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{F^2}{\rho }}\right)\right]+3{\displaystyle \frac{G_cM_{}}{r^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{F^2}{\rho }}k^2c_s^2`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (17)
Here, $`\kappa ^22v_\theta (rv_\theta )^{}/r^2=G_cM_{}/r^3`$ is the epicyclic frequency and the squared sound speed is $`c_s^2=\gamma p/\rho `$. This equation suggests marginal stability for $`F^2/\rho =3G_cM_{}/r^3`$.

An equivalent formulation of the MHD eigenvalue problem for equilibria satisfying (2) reduces the Frieman-Rotenberg system to a $`2\times 2`$ system in terms of the variables $`(\widehat{\chi },\mathrm{\Pi })`$:

$$\frac{AS}{r}\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{\chi }\\ \mathrm{\Pi }\end{array}\right)^{}+\left(\begin{array}{cc}C& D\\ E& C\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{\chi }\\ \mathrm{\Pi }\end{array}\right)=0.$$
(18)
In this equation, the following terms appear

$`C`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{r}}V_g\rho \stackrel{~}{\omega }^2A+{\displaystyle \frac{2m}{r^3}}\left(B_\theta F+\rho v_\theta \stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)S2{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }^3B_\theta }{r^2}}\left(B_\theta \stackrel{~}{\omega }+v_\theta F\right),`$ (19)
$`D`$ $`=`$ $`\rho ^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }^4\left({\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{r^2}}+k^2\right)S,`$ (20)
$`E`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{AS}{r}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{A}{r}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{B_\theta ^2}{r^2}}\right)^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{r}}\kappa ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^{}}{r}}V_g{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{r}}V_g^2{\displaystyle \frac{A}{S}}+4\rho ^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }{\displaystyle \frac{B_\theta }{r^2}}V_g{\displaystyle \frac{B_\theta \stackrel{~}{\omega }+v_\theta F}{S}}\right]`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{r^4}}\left[\rho ^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2B_\theta ^2(B_\theta \stackrel{~}{\omega }+v_\theta F)^2\left(\left[B_\theta ^2+\rho v_\theta ^2\right]F+2\rho \stackrel{~}{\omega }v_\theta B_\theta \right)FS\right].`$
This system (18) reduces to the normal mode picture by Appert et al. (1974) for static cylindrical equilibria without gravity. Bondeson et al. (1987) and Hameiri (1976) derived this system for cylindrical equilibria with flow, without gravity. An analysis for gravitating, flowing, magnetized equilibria in planar geometry is found in van der Holst et al. (1999).

The set of equations (18) again demonstrates that the continuous part of the MHD spectrum is found from $`A=0`$ and $`S=0`$. The ranges in frequency where $`D=0`$ are not part of the continuous spectrum: for details, see Goedbloed (1998). Either of the formalisms given by the set (16), system (18), or the equivalent second order Sturm-Liouville type equation can be used to analyse the MHD spectrum of magnetized accretion disks. In particular, assuming a radial variation $`\mathrm{exp}(ik_rr)`$ we obtain a local dispersion relation given by

$$k_r^2\frac{A^2S^2}{r^2}+C^2+DE=0.$$
(22)
Similar to the static case, or the more general one including flow (Bondeson et al., 1987), one can prove the proportionality $`C^2+DEAS`$, so that the continua $`AS=0`$ can be factored out. This leaves a sixth order polynomial in $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$ which governs all discrete local modes. Again, as a formal limit obtained by nullifying terms where $`m`$, $`k_r`$, or $`B_\theta `$ appears explicitly, and assuming a Keplerian equilibrium $`V_g=0`$, this polynomial is the dispersion relation (17). The more general relation (22) leads immediately to the following marginal stability criterion governing axisymmetric perturbations when $`B_\theta =0`$

$$F^2\left\{\left(k_r^2+k^2\right)\frac{F^2}{\rho }+k^2\left(\kappa ^2\frac{4v_\theta ^2}{r^2}\frac{V_g^2}{c_s^2}+\frac{\rho ^{}}{\rho }V_g\right)\right\}=0.$$
(23)
The multiplicative factor $`F^2=k^2B_z^2`$ highlights the essential magnetic character of this criterion. For non-vanishing $`B_\theta `$, even the $`m=0`$ case of equation (22) allows for overstable or damped MHD waves. The general relation (22) recovers various known results. Terquem and Papaloizou (1996) presented a stability analysis of accretion disks with both radial and vertical equilibrium variations, but a purely toroidal $`B_\theta `$ magnetic field. In particular, a stability criterion for axisymmetric perturbations required a parameter defined in their equation (29) to be positive. If one considers only radial equilibrium variation, the same is found from our dispersion relation (22). Kim and Ostriker (2000) analyzed the stability of a cold ($`p=0`$) radially stratified disk. Our relation (2) contains their equilibrium as a special case, and their results form a subset of our analysis. E.g., their equation (43) for ‘poloidal buoyancy modes’ follows from (22) by taking $`m=B_\theta =v_z=0`$ and assuming $`k_z^2B_z^2/\rho \stackrel{~}{\omega }^2`$. As a final note on the system (18), the pure hydrodynamical limit can be written as

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{\chi }\\ \mathrm{\Pi }\end{array}\right)^{}+\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{p^{}}{\gamma p}+2\frac{mv_\theta }{r^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }}& r\frac{\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2\left(\frac{m^2}{r^2}+k^2\right)c_s^2}{\rho c_s^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2}\\ \left(\frac{\rho ^{}}{\rho }\frac{p^{}}{\gamma p}\right)\frac{p^{}}{r}\frac{\rho }{r}\left(\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2\kappa ^2\right)& \frac{p^{}}{\gamma p}2\frac{mv_\theta }{r^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{\chi }\\ \mathrm{\Pi }\end{array}\right)=0.$$
(24)
The continuous part of the spectrum is now collapsed onto the flow continuum $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2=0`$ (Case, 1960). The local dispersion relation (22) with this flow continuum factored out reads

$$k_r^2c_s^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2+c_s^2\left(2\frac{mv_\theta }{r^2}+\stackrel{~}{\omega }\frac{p^{}}{\gamma p}\right)^2+\left[\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2\left(\frac{m^2}{r^2}+k^2\right)c_s^2\right]\left[\kappa ^2\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2+V_g\left(\frac{\rho ^{}}{\rho }\frac{p^{}}{\gamma p}\right)\right]=0.$$
(25)
Several known results are immediately recovered from this relation, especially for $`m=0`$ modes where it has a simple solution. For a polytropic equilibrium with $`v_z=0`$, the limit where $`(k_r,k)\mathrm{}`$ at a finite ratio $`k_r/k`$ yields $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2=\kappa ^2k^2/(k_r^2+k^2)`$, giving a dense range of discrete modes within $`\kappa <\stackrel{~}{\omega }<\kappa `$. The same limit shows that stability requires $`\kappa ^2>0`$, known as the Rayleigh (1916) criterion. The $`m0`$ global modes of equation (25) are of the Papaloizou and Pringle (1984) variety. High $`m`$ non-axisymmetric instabilities can be inferred from (25), which simplifies in the incompressible limit ($`\gamma \mathrm{}`$, $`\rho ^{}0`$) to a bi-squared relation. For weakly magnetized disks, the modes contained in the dispersion relation (25) will be complemented by Alfvénic and slow magnetosonic perturbations.

## 2 Full spectral analysis of accretion disks

With the general formalism for a complete normal mode analysis of magnetized accretion disks in place, we present in the remainder full MHD spectra for a specific thin disk model satisfying (2). We use an analytical model of a disk where the ratio $`\beta =2p/B^2`$ is $`r`$-independent. Two other parameters are the constant helicity of the magnetic field $`\alpha =B_\theta /B_z`$, and the disk aspect ratio $`\epsilon =H/r1`$, where $`H`$ is the disk scale height. If one neglects radiative pressure in the disk, $`\epsilon `$ measures the ratio of the sound to the Keplerian speed $`\epsilon =c_s/\mathrm{\Omega }_kr`$ (Shakura and Sunyaev, 1973). Because of the Newtonian gravitational field, we describe the physical quantities using radial power laws. To have a constant $`\epsilon `$, $`c_s`$ must scale as $`r^{1/2}`$. The density profile is set to $`\rho r^{3/2}`$. For the pressure and magnetic field we use the $`r^{1/2}`$ scaling of $`c_s`$ and the constant $`\beta `$. The inner radius, the density and the Keplerian velocity at the inner radius make all quantities dimensionless. The resulting disk structure is: $`\rho =r^{3/2}`$, $`p=\epsilon ^2r^{5/2}`$, magnetic field $`B_z=\epsilon \sqrt{2}r^{5/4}/\sqrt{\beta (1+\alpha ^2)}`$ and $`B_\theta =\alpha B_z`$. The rotational velocity will then be $`v_\theta =v_or^{1/2}`$, where $`v_o(\alpha ,\beta ,\epsilon )`$ is found from (2). The $`v_z`$ component is set to zero. We calculate the collection of eigenfrequencies by a generalization of the LEDAFLOW program (Nijboer et al., 1997). LEDAFLOW computes the entire MHD spectrum of 1D, gravitationally stratified, magnetized equilibria with flow by solving the linearised MHD equations. The radial discretization for the eigenfunctions employs quadratic and cubic Hermite finite elements, appropriate for both global and (near-)singular local modes. We use rigid boundary conditions in the domain $`r[1,r_{out}=10]`$. We input the parameters for the equilibrium ($`\alpha ,\beta ,\epsilon `$) and the normal mode numbers ($`m,k`$). Since we consider thin disks, we set $`\epsilon =0.1`$. The helicity of the B field is taken $`\alpha =1`$.

Weakly magnetized accretion disk. We present two calculations for a weakly magnetized accretion disk. We set the parameter $`\beta =\mathrm{2\; 10}^3`$. Similar to Balbus and Hawley (1998), we first take a purely vertical wave vector $`𝐤=2\pi /H𝐞_z`$. The vertical wavelength should not exceed the vertical size of the disk. In Fig. (1), we show the MHD spectrum. We can identify all modes in this plot: the fast-magnetosonic, epicyclic, and (overlapping) Alfvén and slow-magnetosonic continuum modes are all on the real axis. A dense sequence of discrete modes appears on the imaginary axis: the magneto-rotational instability. This sequence is the unstable part of the slow magnetosonic subspectrum. Performing the same calculation for $`\beta \mathrm{}`$ (hydrodynamical case), only the epicyclic and sonic modes remain and no unstable mode is found, confirming its slow magnetosonic nature. We present in Fig. (2) the spectrum for non-axisymmetric perturbations with $`m=10,k=70`$. Note the asymmetry due to the Doppler shift $`𝐤𝐯0`$. The identification of the different modes is quite involved since the fast, slow, Alfvén and epicyclic frequency ranges are all overlapping. Various branches of unstable modes can be seen, where only the rightmost branches correspond to their axisymmetric analogues already present in Figure (1). The structure suggests the presence of global modes accumulating towards both the Alfvén and the slow continua. A full MHD spectroscopic analysis, which investigates the mode types from their specific polarization properties, is the subject of future work.

Equipartition accretion disk ($`\beta =1`$). We performed several calculations of MHD perturbations supported by disks where the magnetic pressure is of the same order as the thermal one. The results we have obtained are quite clear. If the perturbation is non-axisymmetric, unstable branches appear in the spectra. The growth rate of these instabilities grows for increasing $`m`$. For the disk equilibrium discussed above, no axisymmetric unstable modes are found. The spectral structure is shown in Fig. (3) for $`m=10`$. Because all the terms in Eq. (18) are of the same order, a purely analytical approach is virtually impossible.

## 3 Concluding remarks

We applied a general formalism to an astrophysical system where most MHD instabilities are believed to occur: the accretion disk. Our analysis covers both unmagnetized and magnetized disks. Complete MHD spectra were presented for equilibria involving the gravity of a central object, velocities $`v_\theta `$ and $`v_z`$, and both thermal pressure and a magnetic field with azimuthal and vertical components. We deduced the relations (22), (23), (25), describing the threshold of several known instabilities for a differentially rotating fluid, including the Papaloizou-Pringle modes and the weak-field magneto-rotational one. The relations apply to fully compressible, non-Keplerian magnetized disks. If one ignores vertical stratification, they generalize the analysis of Papaloizou and Szuszkiewicz (1992), who considered only $`m=0`$ modes when no azimuthal $`B_\theta `$ field was present. We complemented our analytical approach with numerical calculations of MHD spectra of a realistic magnetized disk model. MHD spectra for weakly magnetized accretion disks contain the magneto-rotational instability and several other branches of discrete unstable modes. We numerically found a variety of toroidal unstable modes which can affect equipartion accretion disks. Our results are consistent with Noguchi et al. (2000) who made an analysis of non-axisymmetric incompressible modes in accretion disks, and found Alfvénic instabilities for strong magnetic fields. We generalize their findings by considering all MHD modes. Instabilities at equipartition field strengths are of big interest since it is believed that magnetized disks launching MHD jets have a thermal pressure of the same order as the magnetic one (Ferreira and Pelletier, 1995). Coppi and Coppi (1998, 2001) have pointed out the importance of anomalous transport produced by non-singular, non-axisymmetric bending modes for the regime of large magnetic energy density. These modes are amongst the instabilities analysed here. A complete MHD spectroscopic study for these and other (also 2D) accretion disk equilibria will be presented in future work (Goedbloed et al., 2002). Since the MHD spectrum for disks which are weakly magnetized or at equipartition field strengths shows this enormous variety of unstable modes, the description of MHD turbulence in magnetized accretion disks is far from complete. Follow-up nonlinear simulations should reveal the importance of the various modes for triggering and sustaining MHD turbulence. The analytical framework presented can be of interest for physical mechanisms involving disk instabilities, such as the ‘Accretion-Ejection Instability’ (Tagger and Pellat, 1999) and the hydrodynamical Rossby vortices (Tagger, 2001). The study of instabilities affecting radially stratified MHD jets (Kersalé et al., 2000; Appl et al., 2000; Kim and Ostriker, 2000) is embedded in the present formalism.

This work was done under Euratom-FOM Association Agreement with financial support from NWO, Euratom, and the European Community’s Human Potential Programme under contract HPRN-CT-2000-00153, PLATON, also acknowledged by F.C.


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# Two-dimensional electron liquid with disorder in a weak magnetic field

## 1 Introduction

A two-dimensional electron gas in the perpendicular magnetic field has attracted much attention both from the theoretical and from the experimental points of view. The effects in a strong magnetic field when only the lowest Landau level is occupied have been investigated since the discovery of the quantum Hall effect . Several efforts  are made in order to involve the larger filling factors $`\nu >1`$ into the problem discussed. However, an existence of the small parameter, namely, a ratio of the Coulomb energy at the magnetic field length to the cyclotron energy has been assumed. In fact, in a weak magnetic field the Coulomb energy at the magnetic field length exceeds the cyclotron energy and some attempts  have been undertaken to investigate the case of the large filling factor $`\nu >1`$.

The experimental investigation of the tunneling density of states for the system considered was performed at small ($`\nu <1`$ and at large ($`\nu >1`$ filling factors. In the case of a weak magnetic field ($`\nu 1`$) the gap in the tunneling density of states has been obtained in the framework of hydrodynamical approach . The progress was made by Aleiner and Glazman  who have developed the effective theory for low-energy excitations on the partially filled Landau level at a large filling factors $`\nu 1`$.

Recently, after the prediction that the unidirectional charge-density wave state occurs at half-filled high Landau levels within the framework of Hartree-Fock theory  and the experimental discovery of compressible states with the anisotropic magnetotransport properties in the high mobility systems near the half-filling of the high Landau levels , the two-dimensional electron liquid in a weak magnetic field has been studying intensively .

In the paper the low energy effective theory for electrons at the partially filled Landau level with the large filling factor in the presence of disorder is developed (Sec.2). As an example, the effect of disorder on the exchange enhancement of the effective $`g`$-factor and the simplest spin-wave excitations are discussed in Sec.4. An electron tunneling into the electron liquid is considered in Sec.5. The conclusion is given in Sec.6.

## 2 Derivation of the effective action

### 2.1 Introduction

We consider the system of two-dimensional electrons with the Coulomb interaction in the presence of disorder and a perpendicular magnetic field $`H`$. The system possesses a partially filled high Landau level with the level index $`N1`$ equal to the integer part of a half of the filling factor $`\nu `$, namely, $`N=[\nu /2]`$. The presence of a random potential which is considered to be short-range results in a broadening of the Landau levels. We imply that the elastic collision time satisfies the condition $`\tau _0\omega _c^1`$ where $`\omega _c=eH/m`$ is the cyclotron frequency with the charge of electrons $`e`$ and the electron mass $`m`$. In this case the broadening of the Landau levels which is of order of $`\sqrt{\omega _c\tau _0}/\tau _0`$ is much less then the distance between them.

The conventional parameter characterizing the coupling strength of the Coulomb interaction is $`r_s=\sqrt{2}e^2/v_F`$ with $`v_F`$ being the Fermi velocity. We assume that electrons are weakly interacting, i.e., $`r_s<1`$. In this case we can treat the problem discussed in the random phase approximation. We also assume that the number $`N`$ is sufficiently large, so the condition $`Nr_s1`$ satisfies. This means that the cyclotron radius $`R_c=\sqrt{\nu /m\omega _c}`$ is supposed to be much more than the Bohr radius $`a_B=1/me^2`$, namely, $`R_ca_B`$.

### 2.2 Formalism

The system is described by the following grand canonical partition function in the path-integral representation

$$Z=𝒟[\overline{\psi },\psi ]𝒟[V_{dis}]𝒫[V_{dis}(\stackrel{}{r})]e^{S[\overline{\psi },\psi ,V_{dis}]}$$
(1)
$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{N_r}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1/T}{}}}d\tau {\displaystyle }d^2\stackrel{}{r}[\overline{\psi }^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r},\tau )(_\tau +\mu V_{dis}(\stackrel{}{r}))\psi ^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r},\tau )`$ (2)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle }d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1\overline{\psi }^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r},\tau )\psi ^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r},\tau )U_0(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)\overline{\psi }^{\alpha ,\sigma _1}(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\tau )\psi ^{\alpha ,\sigma _1}(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\tau )]`$
Here $`\psi ^{\alpha ,\sigma }`$ and $`\overline{\psi }^{\alpha ,\sigma }`$ are the Grassmann variables defined within the imaginary time interval $`\tau [0,1/T]`$ with the antiperiodic condition $`\psi (\stackrel{}{r},1/T)=\psi (\stackrel{}{r},0)`$. Symbol $`T`$ stands for the temperature, $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential of the system, and $`\sigma ,\sigma _1=\pm 1`$ are spin indices. Hamiltonian $`=(ie\stackrel{}{A})^2/(2m)`$ describes an electron with mass $`m`$ propagating in the two-dimensional space in the perpendicular magnetic field $`H=ϵ_{ab}_aA_b`$. The random potential $`V_{dis}(\stackrel{}{r})`$ is chosen to have the Gaussian distribution function

$$𝒫[V_{dis}(\stackrel{}{r})]=\sqrt{\rho \tau _0}\mathrm{exp}\left(\pi \rho \tau _0d^2\stackrel{}{r}V_{dis}^2(\stackrel{}{r})\right)$$
(3)
where $`\rho `$ denotes the thermodynamical density of states.

In order to find the average $`\overline{\mathrm{ln}Z}`$ over disorder, there are introduced $`N_r`$ replicated copies of the system and $`\alpha =1,\mathrm{},N_r`$ are replica indices.

The Matsubara representation seems to be more convenient for the problem concerned. Therefore the Fourier transform from imaginary time $`\tau `$ to the Matsubara frequencies will be employed. Since the fermionic fields are antiperiodic within the interval $`[0,1/T]`$, the frequencies permitted for $`\overline{\psi }`$ and $`\psi `$ are $`\omega _n=\pi T(2n+1)`$, $`n`$ being an integer. The Fourier-transformed fields are defined, respectively

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\overline{\psi }^\alpha (\tau )=\sqrt{T}\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\overline{\psi }_n^\alpha e^{i\omega _n\tau }\hfill & ,& \hfill \psi ^\alpha (\tau )=\sqrt{T}\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\psi _n^\alpha e^{i\omega _n\tau }\end{array}$$
(4)
Later on, the limits in the frequency and replica series will be omitted for a brevity.

In the Matsubara representation the action (2) becomes

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^2\stackrel{}{r}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,n}{}}[\overline{\psi }_n^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r})(i\omega _n+\mu V_{dis}(\stackrel{}{r}))\psi _n^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r})`$ (5)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}{\displaystyle }d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1\overline{\psi }_m^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r})\psi _{mn}^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r})U_0(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)\overline{\psi }_l^{\alpha ,\sigma _1}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)\psi _{l+n}^{\alpha ,\sigma _1}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)]`$
The Zeeman term in action (2) is neglected due to smallness of the $`g`$-factor. In fact, the condition $`g1`$ is usually hold. Nevertheless, the Zeeman term can be involved into the effective action after performing the integration over the fast degrees of freedom. To simplify the notation, the spin indices will be associated with the replica ones where it will be convenient.

### 2.3 Plasmon field and the average over disorder

The Coulomb term in action (5) is quartic in the fermionic fields. One can get rid of this quartic term by performing the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, introducing an extra path integration over bosonic field $`\lambda _n^\alpha (\stackrel{}{r})`$. With the help of the so-called plasmon field the Coulomb term can be presented as

$`{\displaystyle 𝒟[\lambda ]\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{T}{2}d^2\stackrel{}{r}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{r})U_0^1(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)\lambda (\stackrel{}{r}_1)+iTd^2\stackrel{}{r}\psi ^{}(\stackrel{}{r})\widehat{\lambda }(\stackrel{}{r})\psi (\stackrel{}{r})\right]}`$ (6)
where $`U_0^1`$ stands for the operator inverse in $`U_0`$. The matrix notations are used for the combined replica and frequency indices

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\psi ^{}(\mathrm{})\psi =\underset{n,m}{\overset{\alpha ,\beta }{}}\overline{\psi }_n^\alpha (\mathrm{})_{nm}^{\alpha \beta }\psi _m^\beta \hfill & ,& \hfill \lambda ^{}\lambda =\underset{n}{\overset{\alpha }{}}\lambda _n^\alpha \lambda _n^\alpha \end{array}$$
(7)
The quantities with the “hat” are defined according to $`\widehat{z}=_{\alpha ,n}z_n^\alpha I_n^\alpha `$ with the matrix $`(I_n^\alpha )_{kl}^{\beta \gamma }=\delta ^{\alpha \beta }\delta ^{\alpha \gamma }\delta _{kl,n}`$. The matrices $`I_n^\alpha `$ represent the diagonals shifted in the frequency space and, in general, are the generators of the $`U(1)`$-gauge transformations. The measure of the functional integral over the plasmon field $`\lambda `$ is introduced so that integral (6) equals unity while fermionic fields $`\psi ^{}`$ and $`\psi `$ vanish.

In order to perform the averaging over disorder in the partition function (1), one should integrate over the random potential $`V_{dis}(\stackrel{}{r})`$. This leads straightforwardly to the following quartic term

$$\frac{1}{4\pi \rho \tau }d^2\stackrel{}{r}\underset{nm}{\overset{\alpha \beta }{}}\overline{\psi }_n^\alpha (\stackrel{}{r})\psi _n^\alpha (\stackrel{}{r})\overline{\psi }_m^\beta (\stackrel{}{r})\psi _m^\beta (\stackrel{}{r})$$
(8)
in the action. The term (8) can be decoupled by means of the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation. An extra path integration over the Hermitian matrix field variables $`Q_{nm}^{\alpha \beta }(\stackrel{}{r})`$ can be introduced

$$𝒟[Q]\mathrm{exp}d^2\stackrel{}{r}\left[\pi \rho \tau _0trQ^2(\stackrel{}{r})+i\psi ^{}(\stackrel{}{r})Q(\stackrel{}{r})\psi (\stackrel{}{r})\right]$$
(9)
Here the symbol $`tr`$ denotes the matrix trace over the Matsubara, replica and spin spaces. The measure of the functional integral over the matrix field $`Q`$ is defined in the same way as for the plasmon field, i.e., integral (9) equals unity while fermionic fields $`\psi ^{}`$ and $`\psi `$ vanish.

After calculations discussed above the partition function becomes

$$Z=𝒟[\overline{\psi },\psi ,\lambda ,Q]e^{S[\overline{\psi },\psi ,\lambda ,Q]}$$
(10)
$`S`$ $`=`$ $`\pi \rho \tau _0{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}trQ^2}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{2}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{r})U_0^1(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)\lambda (\stackrel{}{r}_1)}`$ (11)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}\psi ^{}(\stackrel{}{r})\left(i\omega +\mu \widehat{}+iT\widehat{\lambda }+iQ\right)\psi (\stackrel{}{r})}`$
Here $`\omega `$ is a unity matrix in the replica space while in the Matsubara space it is a matrix containing the frequencies $`\omega _n`$ on the diagonal, namely, $`(\omega )_{nm}^{\alpha \beta }=\omega _n\delta _{nm}\delta ^{\alpha \beta }`$.

### 2.4 Elimination of the $`N`$-th Landau level

The fermionic fields $`\psi ^{}`$ and $`\psi `$ refer to all Landau levels. In order to integrate over all the fermionic degrees of freedom not belonging to the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level, we separate the fermionic fields into two kinds. The first field refers to the $`N`$-th Landau level

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{r})=\underset{k}{}\psi _{Nk}\phi _{Nk}(\stackrel{}{r})\hfill & ,& \hfill \mathrm{\Psi }^{}(\stackrel{}{r})=\underset{k}{}\psi _{Nk}^{}\phi _{Nk}(\stackrel{}{r})\end{array}$$
(12)
The second one involves the other levels

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{\Phi }(\stackrel{}{r})=\underset{pN,k}{}\psi _{pk}\phi _{pk}(\stackrel{}{r})\hfill & ,& \hfill \mathrm{\Phi }^{}(\stackrel{}{r})=\underset{pN,k}{}\psi _{pk}^{}\phi _{pk}(\stackrel{}{r})\end{array}$$
(13)
where $`\phi _{pk}(\stackrel{}{r})`$ are the eigenfunctions of the hamiltonian $``$ and $`p=0,1,\mathrm{},N,\mathrm{}`$ numerates the Landau levels with energies $`ϵ_p=\omega _c(p+1/2)`$. In addition, we introduce two types of the Green functions. One is for the $`N`$-th Landau level

$$G(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1;Q,\lambda )=\underset{k,k^{}}{}\phi _{Nk}^{}(\stackrel{}{r})G_{Nk,Nk^{}}(Q,\lambda )\phi _{Nk^{}}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)$$
(14)
and another is for the other levels

$$\stackrel{~}{G}(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1;Q,\lambda )=\underset{p,p^{}N}{}\underset{k,k^{}}{}\phi _{pk}^{}(\stackrel{}{r})G_{pk,p^{}k^{}}(Q,\lambda )\phi _{p^{}k^{}}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)$$
(15)
where the inverse of the Green function for the $`\psi _{pk}`$ and $`\psi _{p^{}k^{}}^{}`$ operators is as follows

$$(G^1)_{pk,p^{}k^{}}=(i\omega +\mu ϵ_p)\delta _{pp^{}}\delta _{kk^{}}+iT\widehat{\lambda }_{pk,p^{}k^{}}+iQ_{pk,p^{}k^{}}$$
(16)
with the following matrix elements

$$f_{pk,p^{}k^{}}=d^2\stackrel{}{r}\phi _{p^{}k^{}}^{}(\stackrel{}{r})f(\stackrel{}{r})\phi _{pk}(\stackrel{}{r})$$
(17)
The action (11) is bilinear in the fermionic fields $`\psi ^{}`$ and $`\psi `$ and obviously does in the fermionic fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ too. Therefore one can integrate over the fermionic fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and obtain the following result

$`S={\displaystyle tr\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{G}}\pi \rho \tau _0{\displaystyle trQ^2}+{\displaystyle \mathrm{\Psi }^{}\left[i\omega +\mu \widehat{}+iT\widehat{\lambda }+iQ\right]\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ (18)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T}{2}}{\displaystyle \lambda ^{}U_0^1\lambda }+{\displaystyle \left[\mathrm{\Psi }^{}Q\stackrel{~}{G}Q\mathrm{\Psi }+2T\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\widehat{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{G}Q\mathrm{\Psi }+T^2\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\widehat{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{G}\widehat{\lambda }\mathrm{\Psi }\right]}`$
Hereafter, the space indices are omitted. It should be noted that the last term in the action (18) appears due to the interaction between electrons belonging to the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level and the other electrons.

### 2.5  Integration over the $`Q`$ field

The $`Q`$ matrix field should be divided into the transverse $`V`$ and the longitudinal $`P`$ components as follows $`Q=V^1PV`$. Here the longitudinal component $`P`$ has a block-diagonal structure in the Matsubara space, i.e., $`P_{nm}^{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Theta }(nm)`$ where $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ is the Heaviside step function. The transverse component $`V`$ corresponds to a unitary rotation. One can find a review on the above discussion in Refs. .

The change of variables $`Q`$ with $`P`$ and $`V`$ is motivated by the saddle-point structure of the action (18) in the absence of the plasmon field $`\lambda `$ and at zero temperature, i.e., $`\omega _n0`$. This saddle-point solution can be written as $`Q_{sp}=V^1P_{sp}V`$ where the matrix $`P_{sp}`$ obeys the equation

$$2\pi \rho \tau _0P_{sp}=i\left[G_0(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r})+\stackrel{~}{G}_0(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r})\right]$$
(19)
which coincides with the self-consistent Born approximation equation . Here the Green function $`G_0`$ is determined as a special case of $`G`$, namely, $`G_0(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)=G(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1;P_{sp},0)`$ and the same for $`\stackrel{~}{G}_0`$.

In the case of small disorder $`\omega _c\tau _01`$ the solution of equation (19) has the form as

$$\begin{array}{ccc}(P_{sp})_{nm}^{\alpha \beta }=\frac{signn}{2\tau }\delta _{nm}\delta ^{\alpha \beta }\hfill & ,& \hfill \tau =\pi \sqrt{\frac{\rho }{m}}\frac{\tau _0}{\sqrt{\omega _c\tau _0}}\end{array}$$
(20)
The presence of the plasmon field $`\lambda `$ results in a shift of the saddle-point value (20) of the $`P`$ field which can be found by expanding the action (18) to second order in both $`\lambda `$ and $`\delta P=PP_{sp}`$. Hence one can obtain

$$S=S_0+S_1[\delta P,\lambda ]+S_2[\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }},\mathrm{\Psi },\delta P,\lambda ]$$
(21)
$$S_0=\left(tr\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{G}_0\pi \rho \tau _0trQ_{sp}^2+\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\left[i\omega +\mu \widehat{}+iT\widehat{\lambda }+iQ_{sp}\right]\mathrm{\Psi }\right)$$
(22)
$$S_1=iTtr\stackrel{~}{G}_0\widehat{\lambda }\pi \rho \tau _0tr(\delta P)^2\frac{T}{2}\lambda ^{}U_0^1\lambda \frac{1}{2}tr\left[T\widehat{\lambda }+\delta P\right]\pi _0\left[T\widehat{\lambda }+\delta P\right]$$
(23)
$$S_2=\left(\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\left[T\widehat{\lambda }+\delta P\right]\stackrel{~}{G}_0\left[T\widehat{\lambda }+\delta P\right]\mathrm{\Psi }2tr\left[T\widehat{\lambda }+\delta P\right]\stackrel{~}{G}_0\left[T\widehat{\lambda }+\delta P\right]G_0\right)$$
(24)
where a bare polarization operator $`\pi _0`$ is implied to be a matrix according to the rule

$`trA\pi _0B={\displaystyle \underset{nm}{\overset{\alpha \beta }{}}}A_{m+n,m}^{\alpha \beta }(\stackrel{}{r})\pi _0^m(n;\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)B_{m,m+n}^{\beta \alpha }(\stackrel{}{r}_1)`$ (25)
and is defined by

$$\pi _0^m(n;\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)=2\left(\stackrel{~}{G}_0^{m+n}(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^m(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r})+\stackrel{~}{G}_0^{m+n}(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)G_0^m(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r})+G_0^{m+n}(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_1)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^m(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r})\right)$$
(26)
After decomposing of the matrix field $`Q`$ into the block-diagonal Hermitian matrix field $`P`$ and unitary matrix field $`V`$, the measure of the functional integral in (21) becomes $`𝒟[Q]=𝒟[V]𝒟[\delta P]I[\delta P]`$ where

$$\mathrm{ln}I[\delta P]=\frac{1}{(\pi \rho )^2}\underset{nm}{\overset{\alpha \beta }{}}\left[1\mathrm{\Theta }(nm)\right]\delta P_{nn}^{\alpha \alpha }\delta P_{mm}^{\beta \beta }$$
(27)
The terms which are quadratic in $`\delta P`$ from the term $`S_1`$ of action (21) together with the contribution from measure (27) determine the propagator of the $`\delta P`$ fields

$`\delta P_{m_1m_2}^{\alpha \beta }(\stackrel{}{q})\delta P_{m_3m_4}^{\gamma \delta }(\stackrel{}{q})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{m_1m_4}\delta _{m_2m_3}\delta ^{\alpha \delta }\delta ^{\beta \gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(m_1m_3)}{2\pi \rho \tau _0}}}{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _0^{m_1}(m_3m_1;\stackrel{}{q})}{2\pi \rho \tau _0}}}}`$ (28)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\left[1\mathrm{\Theta }(m_1m_3)\right]}{(2\pi ^2\rho ^2\tau )^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{m_1m_2}\delta ^{\alpha \beta }}{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _0^{m_1}(0;\stackrel{}{q})}{2\pi \rho \tau _0}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{m_3m_4}\delta ^{\delta \gamma }}{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _0^{m_3}(0;\stackrel{}{q})}{2\pi \rho \tau _0}}}}`$
It should be noted that the propagator of the longitudinal fluctuations (28) proves to be analogous to that previously obtained for the problem on the behavior of a free electron gas in the perpendicular magnetic field .

Using the expression (28) for the propagator of the $`\delta P`$ fields, one can integrate action (21) over the longitudinal fluctuations in the quadratic approximation. This yields the following result

$$S=S_0+S_\lambda +S_\mu $$
(29)
where $`S_0`$ given by equation (22) describes the electrons at the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level coupled to the plasmon and $`Q_{sp}`$ fields. The term $`S_\lambda `$ concerns the screening of the Coulomb interaction due to the influence of electrons from the other Landau levels and is given by

$`S_\lambda =iT{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}tr\stackrel{~}{G}_0(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r})\widehat{\lambda }(\stackrel{}{r})}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\stackrel{}{q}}{(2\pi )^2}\underset{n}{\overset{\alpha }{}}\lambda _n^\alpha (\stackrel{}{q})U_0^1(q)\epsilon (n,\stackrel{}{q})\lambda _n^\alpha (\stackrel{}{q})}`$ (30)
where the dielectric function $`\epsilon (n,q)=1+U_0(q)\mathrm{\Pi }(n,q)`$ with the following polarization operator <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1 It should be noted that similar form of the polarization operator but with another bare polarization operator $`\pi _0^m(n,q)`$ was first derived by Baranov and Pruisken

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(n,q)`$ $`=`$ $`T{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}\pi _0^m(n,q)\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(n(n+m)){\displaystyle \frac{\pi _0^m(n,q)}{2\pi \rho \tau _0}}}{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _0^m(n,q)}{2\pi \rho \tau _0}}}}\right]`$ (31)
$`+`$ $`T{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{n,0}}{(\pi ^2\rho ^2\tau )^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{km}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{[1\mathrm{\Theta }(km)]\pi _0^m(0,q)}{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _0^m(0,q)}{2\pi \rho \tau _0}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _0^k(0,q)}{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _0^k(0,q)}{2\pi \rho \tau _0}}}}`$
The third term $`S_\mu `$ of action (29) contains the terms which affect the chemical and thermodynamic potentials of the system (See Appendix A).

It is worthwhile to mention that the saddle-point approximation in which the integration over the $`Q`$ field is performed is valid since the condition $`\mu \tau =N\omega _c\tau 1`$ is hold.

### 2.6 Integration over the plasmon field

As a final step of the procedure, the action (29) should be integrated over the plasmon field $`\lambda `$. The integration can be performed in the quadratic approximation in the $`\lambda `$ fields. The corresponding propagator is determined by the second term in Eq.(30). After that one obtains the effective action for electrons on the partially filled Landau level which is the main result of the paper

$`S_{eff}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{T}}+{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(\stackrel{}{r})\left[i\omega +\stackrel{~}{\mu }\widehat{}+iQ_{sp}\right]\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{r})}\pi \rho \tau _0{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}trQ_{sp}^2(\stackrel{}{r})}`$ (32)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T}{2}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1\underset{nmk}{\overset{\alpha }{}}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_m^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r})\mathrm{\Psi }_{m+n}^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r})U_{eff}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1)\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k^{\alpha ,\sigma _1}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)\mathrm{\Psi }_{kn}^{\alpha ,\sigma _1}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)}`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g\omega _c}{2}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}\underset{n}{\overset{\alpha }{}}\sigma \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_n^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r})\mathrm{\Psi }_n^{\alpha ,\sigma }(\stackrel{}{r})}`$
where we incorporate the Zeeman term into the effective action. The Fourier transformation of the effective interaction potential $`U_{eff}(q)=U_0(q)/\epsilon (q)`$ is determined by the static dielectric function $`\epsilon (q)\epsilon (0,q)`$. In general, the low energy properties of the system concerned can be described with the help of the retarded interaction alone (see action (29)). However, the description within the framework of the effective action with the instantaneous interaction seems to be a rather good approximation in the problem under consideration . This is due to the fact that the transitions between the Landau levels have a characteristic time scale about $`\omega _c^1`$ while the typical energy scale in the effective theory is of the order of the exchange energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ex}\omega _c`$(see Sec. 4).

The existence of the other Landau level with the exceptions of the partially filled $`N`$-th one produces an effect on both the thermodynamic and the chemical potentials. The thermodynamic potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in action (32) can be presented in the following way

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_0+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }$$
(33)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ is the thermodynamic potential of the system of noninteracting electrons for the completely filled Landau levels in the presence of disorder

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_0=Td^2\stackrel{}{r}tr\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{G}_0(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r})$$
(34)
and the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is analogous to first-order exchange and correlation correction equivalent to the sum of ring diagrams and contributing to the ground state energy of a clean electron liquid

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{T}{2}d^2\stackrel{}{r}\underset{n}{}\frac{d^2\stackrel{}{q}}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{ln}\epsilon (n,\stackrel{}{q})$$
(35)
The chemical potential $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }`$ in action (32) can be written as

$$\stackrel{~}{\mu }=\mu +\delta \mu $$
(36)
where the shift of the chemical potential

$$\delta \mu =2\pi l^2T\underset{n}{}d^2\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{~}{G}_0^n(0,\stackrel{}{r})P_N(0,\stackrel{}{r})U_{eff}(n,\stackrel{}{r})$$
(37)
contains the corrections similar to the exchange and correlation ones in a clean electron liquid. Here $`l=1/\sqrt{m\omega _c}`$ is the magnetic field length. The quantity $`U_{eff}(n,\stackrel{}{r})`$ is a Fourier transform of $`U_0(\stackrel{}{q})/\epsilon (n,\stackrel{}{q})`$ and

$$P_N(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r}_2)=\underset{k}{}\phi _{Nk}^{}(\stackrel{}{r}_2)\phi _{Nk}(\stackrel{}{r}_1)$$
(38)
is the projectional operator onto the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level.

It should be noted that the corrections to the thermodynamical and chemical potentials contain additional terms except ones presented above. They are neglected in the limit of a weak disorder $`\omega _c\tau 1`$ (see Appendix A).

The integration over the plasmon field is performed in the Gaussian approximation. It can be justified provided the fluctuations of the plasmon field are small. The long and short-range fluctuations are different physically. In the case of large length scale $`rR_c`$, the dipole transitions between the adjacent Landau levels are induced only. The long-range fluctuations are small if the condition $`Nr_s1`$ satisfies . Physically, this condition means that the characteristic length scale $`R_c^2/a_B`$ of the long-range fluctuations should be much more then the cyclotron radius $`R_c`$. The short-range fluctuations correspond to the case of small length scale $`rR_c`$. The transitions between distant Landau levels are possible in this case. The condition $`r_s1`$ of smallness for the short-range fluctuations is just the criterion of perturbation theory applicability to the Coulomb interaction.

## 3 Effective interaction, the thermodynamic and chemical potentials

The results of previous section allow to find the effective action (32) for the electrons on the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level. The main physical quantity which affects the dynamics of the electrons is the effective electron-electron interaction. It is completely determined by the static dielectric function $`\epsilon (q)`$. The other two interesting quantities in the effective action (32) are the thermodynamical and chemical potentials.

### 3.1 Effective interaction

The most pronounced effect of electrons on the completely filled Landau levels is the screening of the electron-electron interaction on the partially filled Landau level. This screening is determined by the static dielectric function $`\epsilon (q)`$.

According to the equation (31) for the polarization operator $`\mathrm{\Pi }(n,q)`$, the dielectric function can be obtained for arbitrary value of the disorder parameter $`\omega _c\tau `$. However the situation of the small broadening of Landau level due to the disorder is the most interest from the physical point of view. In this case the expression for the static dielectric function can be simplified drastically

$$\epsilon (q)=1+\frac{2\pi e^2}{q}T\underset{n}{}\pi _0^n(0,q),\omega _c\tau 1$$
(39)
The evaluation of the static dielectric function is presented in Appendix B. The result of evaluation can be written as

$$\epsilon (q)=1+\frac{2}{qa_B}\left(1\frac{\pi }{6\tau \omega _c}\right)\left(1𝒥_0^2(qR_c)\right)$$
(40)
Here $`𝒥_0(x)`$ is the Bessel function of the first kind. Expression (40) for the static dielectric function is the main result of the paper.

It is worthwhile to note that the asymptotic expressions (in the $`qR_c1`$ and $`qR_c1`$ domains) for the static dielectric function $`\epsilon (q)`$ in a clean system ($`\tau ^1=0`$) was obtained earlier by Kukushkin, Meshkov and Timofeev . The general expression for the static dielectric function in a clean system was derived by Aleiner and Glazman .

We mention that the asymptotic expressions for the static dielectric function in a clean system can be obtained from a clear physical picture . The behavior of the static dielectric function in the region $`qR_c1`$ can be explained by dipole transitions between the adjacent Landau levels. The result for the static dielectric function in the region $`qR_c1`$ is explained by the standard Thomas-Fermi screening. But there is no clear physical picture in the case of a weak dirty system. We have no other opportunity to obtain the dielectric function except the derivation of the effective action for electrons on the partially filled Landau level.

According to equation (40) in the $`qR_c1`$ domain the static dielectric function is as follows

$$\epsilon (q)=1+\left(1\frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }\right)\frac{R_c^2q}{a_B}$$
(41)
The above result shows that the disorder suppresses the effect of the screening. We can expect that while the disorder increases the screening decreases. We can estimate the disorder threshold $`\tau ^{}`$, i.e., the point of vanishing screening, as $`\omega _c\tau ^{}\pi /6`$.

One can obtain from equation (40) the following expression for the static dielectric function in the $`qR_c1`$ domain

$$\epsilon (q)=1+\frac{2}{qa_B}\left(1\frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }\right)\left(1\frac{1+\mathrm{sin}2qR_c)}{\pi qR_c}\right)$$
(42)
The disorder suppresses the screening also in the region of large wave vectors $`qR_c1`$.

Equations (40) allow us to obtain the asymptotic behavior of the effective interaction $`U_{eff}(r)`$ in the coordinate space. The polarization is insignificant for the very large length scale $`rR_c^2/a_B`$ and the effective interaction coincides with the bare Coulomb interaction

$$U_{eff}(r)=\frac{e^2}{r}\left(1\frac{R_c^4}{a_B^2r^2}\left[1\frac{\pi }{3\omega _c\tau }\right]\right)$$
(43)
At the intermediate scale $`R_c^2/a_BrR_c`$ the polarization becomes important and the effective interaction reads

$$U_{eff}(r)=\frac{\omega _c}{2N\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }}\right)}\mathrm{ln}\left(1+\frac{R_c^2(1{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }})}{a_Br}\right)$$
(44)
We note that while disorder increases the effective interaction tends to the bare Coulomb interaction. For the small scale $`R_cra_B`$ the Thomas-Fermi screening takes place and the effective interaction has the following form

$$U_{eff}(r)=\frac{e^2a_B^2}{r^3}\left(1\frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }\right)$$
(45)
It should be emphasized that the disorder in the system affects the electron-electron most strongly within the intermediate length scale $`R_c^2/a_BrR_c`$. Physically, this is the case in which dipole transitions between the adjacent Landau levels are possible.

### 3.2 The thermodynamic and chemical potentials

The thermodynamic and chemical potentials (34-37) can be evaluated in the leading orders in $`1/N`$. The detailed calculations are presented in Appendix C.

The thermodynamic potential for the system of noninteracting electrons in the presence of disorder for the completely filled Landau levels is given by

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_0=\frac{L_xL_y}{\pi l^2}\left[\frac{N(N1)}{2}\omega _c\mu \frac{\mathrm{ln}(2\omega _c\tau )1}{\pi \tau }\right]$$
(46)
where $`L_x`$ and $`L_y`$ are the sizes of the system. The first-order exchange correction to the thermodynamical potential reads

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{L_xL_y}{\pi l^2}\frac{e^2}{\pi l}(2N)^{3/2}\left[\frac{2}{3}+\frac{2\mathrm{ln}2}{\pi \omega _c\tau }\frac{1}{2N}\right]$$
(47)
The presence of disorder changes the dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$ on the magnetic field, i.e., $`N`$. For the dirty system, the second term in brackets of equation (47) is proportional to $`1/N`$. This is in contrast to the clean system where the correction is much smaller and proportional to $`1/N^2`$ .

The shift of the chemical potential due to exchange correction can be written as

$$\delta \mu =\frac{2e^2}{\pi l}(2N)^{1/2}\left[1\frac{\mathrm{ln}N}{8N}+\frac{1}{\pi \omega _c\tau }\frac{1}{2N}\right]$$
(48)
It should be noted that $`\delta \mu `$ contains only the exchange correction and does not include the correlation correction due to normal ordering of the $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ fields (see Ref. ).

## 4 Spin excitations

In the previous section we analyzed the renormalization of the electron-electron interaction on the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level due to the existence of the other levels. In this section we investigate the enhancement of the $`g`$-factor and the simplest spin excitations at the filling factor $`\nu =2N+1`$.

The electrons on the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level at the filling factor $`\nu =2N+1`$ possess a maximal spin in the ground state, since the ground state does not contain skyrmions at large $`\nu `$ . This ground state is obviously fully spin-polarized and described by the following wave function $`|N_{el}=N_\mathrm{\Phi },S_z=N_\mathrm{\Phi }/2`$ where $`N_{el}`$ is the number of electrons on the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level and $`N_\mathrm{\Phi }=L_xL_y/(2\pi l^2)`$ is the number of states on the Landau level. The simplest excitations are described by the state of energy $`E_{}`$ with an extra hole and the state of energy $`E_{}`$ with an extra electron. The width of the spin gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_s`$ is related with the energies of the excited states and with the energy $`E_0`$ of the ground state  as follows $`\mathrm{\Delta }_s=E_{}+E_{}2E_0`$. We can obtain that the width of the spin gap equals $`\mathrm{\Delta }_s=\mathrm{\Delta }_{ex}+g\omega _c`$ where the shift of the chemical potential $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ex}`$ due to the exchange interaction  is determined by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{ex}=2\pi l^2d^2\stackrel{}{r}U_{eff}(\stackrel{}{r})P_N(0,\stackrel{}{r})P_N(\stackrel{}{r},0)$$
(49)
Using expression (38) for the projectional operator $`P_N`$ we can evaluate the effective $`g`$-factor. It is defined as $`g_{eff}=\mathrm{\Delta }_s/\omega _c`$ and reads

$`g_{eff}=g+{\displaystyle \frac{r_s}{\pi \sqrt{2}}}\mathrm{ln}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{2}}{r_s}}(1{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }})\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{E_h}{\omega _c}}`$ (50)
where a “hydrodynamic” term is

$$E_h=\frac{\omega _c}{2N\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }}\right)}\mathrm{ln}\left[1+\sqrt{2}r_sN(1\frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau })\right]$$
(51)
The disorder in the system results in the enhancement of the effective $`g`$-factor.

Now we are in the position to discuss the neutral excitations — spin waves  at the filling factor $`\nu =2N+1`$. They are described by the following wave function

$$\underset{q}{}e^{ik_xql^2}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{N,q,}\mathrm{\Psi }_{N,qk_y,}|N_\mathrm{\Phi },\frac{N_\mathrm{\Phi }}{2}$$
(52)
Following Ref. , we should take into account three contributions. They are the difference of the exchange self-energy of an electron in the excited Landau level and the self-energy in the level from which the electron removed, the direct Coulomb interaction and the exchange energy. Then we obtain the equation which determines the spectrum of the spin wave excitations

$`\omega =g\omega _c+{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\stackrel{}{q}}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{U_0(q)}{\epsilon (q,\omega )}\left[L_N\left(\frac{q^2l^2}{2}\right)\right]^2e^{q^2l^2/2}\left(1e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q}l^2}\right)}`$ (53)
where $`L_N(x)`$ is the Laguerre polynomial. The dielectric function $`\epsilon (q,\omega )`$ contains the imaginary part (see Eq.(B.4)) which is of order of $`1/\omega _c\tau `$. It results in the decay rate of the spin wave excitations. Physically, the spin wave excitations decay due to the scattering on impurities. We mention that the decay rate appears also in the magnetoplasmon spectrum.

The energy of the spin wave excitations is much less then $`\omega _c`$, $`\omega (k)\omega _c`$. Thus we can calculate the real $`E_{SW}(k)`$ and imaginary $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{SW}(k)`$ part of the spin-wave energy separately. We put $`\omega `$ to zero in the right hand side of Eq.(53). Then the evaluation of equation (53) leads to a quadratic dispersion relation for the small wave vectors $`kR_c1`$

$`E_{SW}(k)=g\omega _c+{\displaystyle \frac{r_s\omega _c}{\pi \sqrt{2}}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{r_s}{\sqrt{2}}}(1{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }})\right]^1(kR_c)^2`$ (54)
The disorder suppresses the effective mass of the spin wave excitations. For the sufficiently large wave vectors $`1kR_cR_c^2/l^2`$, the energy of spin wave is given by

$`E_{SW}(k)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ex}E_h{\displaystyle \frac{r_s\omega _c}{\pi \sqrt{2}}}[\mathrm{ln}(1+{\displaystyle \frac{(\sqrt{2}r_skR_c)^1}{1{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }}}})`$ (55)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}2kR_c}{2kR_c}}(1+{\displaystyle \frac{r_s}{\sqrt{2}}}(1{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau }}))]`$
In order to obtain the decay rate of the spin wave excitations we take into account that the imaginary part $`\epsilon ^{^{\prime \prime }}`$ of the dielectric function is small. Then we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{SW}(k)={\displaystyle \frac{d^2\stackrel{}{q}}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{U_0(q)\epsilon ^{^{\prime \prime }}(q,E_{SW})}{\epsilon _0^2(q,E_{SW})}\left[L_N\left(\frac{q^2l^2}{2}\right)\right]^2e^{q^2l^2/2}\left(1e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{q}l^2}\right)}`$ (56)
The evaluation of equation (56) for the small wave vectors $`kR_c1`$ results in

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{SW}=\frac{\mathrm{arctan}(2\omega _c\tau g)}{6\omega _c\tau }\frac{e^2}{a_B}(kR_c)^2\frac{1}{(1+{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{a_BR_c}})^2}\frac{2\mathrm{sin}4N}{(4N)^2}$$
(57)
and for the large wave vectors $`kR_c1`$

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{SW}=\frac{\mathrm{arctan}(2\omega _c\tau g_{eff})}{\pi \omega _c\tau }\frac{e^2}{a_B}\left[\left(\frac{a_B}{R_c}\right)^2\mathrm{ln}\frac{R_c}{a_B}+\frac{arccosh(2kR_c)}{2(4N)^2}\right]$$
(58)
We note that the decay rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{SW}`$ is the same order as the corrections to the real part of the spin-wave energy $`E_{SW}`$ due to the presence of disorder.

## 5 Zero-bias anomaly

In this section we consider an electron tunneling into a two-dimensional electron liquid with disorder in a weak magnetic field. We investigate suppression of the tunneling conductivity near zero bias, the so-called zero-bias anomaly. The properties of an electron tunneling into the electron system are usually described by dependence of the tunneling conductivity $`G(V)`$ on bias $`V`$. Recently, the effective action approach for the zero-bias problem was developed by Levitov and Shytov . The effective action describes spreading of a tunneling electron within the electron system in imaginary time $`\zeta `$.

Following Ref. , the action of a spreading charge for the case of zero bias $`V=0`$ is determined by

$$S_0(\zeta )=4\underset{0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{qdq}{2\pi }\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\omega \zeta }{\omega +Dq^2}\frac{U_{eff}(q)}{\omega +Dq^2+\sigma q^2U_{eff}(q)}$$
(59)
where $`\sigma `$ and $`D`$ are conductivity and diffusive constant of the electron system, respectively. They relate to each other by the Einstein’s formula $`\sigma =e^2\rho D`$.

Using asymptotic expression (41) for the static dielectric function $`\epsilon (q)`$ we evaluate the action (59) in the large time $`\zeta 1`$ limit

$$S_0(\zeta )=\frac{e^2}{8\pi ^2\sigma \eta }\mathrm{ln}\frac{2\zeta }{\tau _0}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{2\zeta }{\tau _0}\beta ^{4\eta }\right)$$
(60)
where we introduce two dimensionless parameters

$$\beta =\frac{a_B}{\sqrt{2}l_{el}},\eta =(1\frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau })\left(\frac{R_c}{\sqrt{2}l_{el}}\right)^2$$
(61)
with the bare elastic mean free path $`l_{el}=R_c\omega _c\tau _0`$. According to the inequality $`a_BR_cl_{el}`$, the parameters $`\beta `$ and $`\eta `$ are small, namely, $`\beta 1`$ and $`\eta 1`$.

Taking into account the work done by voltage source, we obtain the total action of the spreading charge $`S(\zeta )=S_0(\zeta )2eV\zeta `$. Then we should find an optimal time $`\zeta _{}`$ which is determined by the minimum of the action $`S(\zeta )`$. The optimal time $`\zeta _{}`$ plays the role of the charge accommodation time in the problem. It can be written as

$$\zeta _{}=\tau _0\frac{V_0}{2V}\mathrm{ln}\frac{V_0}{\beta ^{2\eta }V},eV_0=(1\frac{\pi }{6\omega _c\tau })^1\frac{1}{\pi mR_c^2}$$
(62)
The theory should be self-consistent in the hydrodynamics limit, i.e., $`\zeta _{}\tau _0`$. Hence the theory is fulfilled for bias $`VV_0`$.

Assuming the contribution from the barrier being just a constant at small bias, we can write the tunneling conductivity as follows

$$G(V)=G_0\mathrm{exp}[S_0(\zeta _{})+2eV\zeta _{}]$$
(63)
After performing evaluation we obtain the dependence of the tunneling conductivity on small bias

$$G(V)=G_0\left(\frac{V}{V_0}\right)^{\alpha (V)},\alpha (V)=\frac{e^2}{8\pi ^2\sigma \eta }\mathrm{ln}\frac{V_0}{V\beta ^{4\eta }}$$
(64)
Equation (64) shows that the screening of the electron-electron interaction results in increasing of the suppression of the tunneling conductivity. We mention that the above result is valid for the bias being in the following range $`VV_0`$.

The expression (64) for the tunneling conductivity contains the energy scale $`eV_0`$ which coincides with the “hydrodynamic” term $`E_h`$ in Eq.(51) except the logarithm. A hydrodynamic model for the low-energy excitations of a clean ( $`\tau ^1=0`$ ) electron liquid in a weak magnetic field was considered by Aleiner, Baranger and Glazman . They showed that the tunneling density of states exhibits a gap $`2E_h`$ tied to the Fermi energy. Equation (51) describes the same gap in the case of a weak disorder $`\omega _c\tau 1`$. Apparently, it is disorder to be responsible for the fact that the gap is about $`0.05\omega _c`$ in a wide range of the applied magnetic field .

As magnetic field increases the factor $`\alpha `$ increases and becomes of order of unity. The zero-bias anomaly in the tunneling conductivity crossovers from weak to strong. The expression (64) shows that the factor $`\alpha `$ depends on bias $`V`$ and magnetic field. It results in the shift alone bias $`V`$ of the crossover point $`V_c`$ with the change of the applied magnetic field

$$V_c=V_0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{4\pi \mu }{\omega _c^2\tau _0}\right)$$
(65)
where $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential. The crossover was observed by Ashoori et al.  in the tunneling current from a normal metal into a two-dimensional electrons in the presence of a magnetic field. In the experiment the ohmic conductance was measured as a function of temperature $`T`$. For low temperatures the conductance corresponds to the zero temperature conductance taken at $`V=T/e`$. The two-dimensional electrons were relatively clean with the elastic collision time $`\tau _0410^{12}s`$. The chemical potential calculated from the electron density was $`\mu =10mV`$. Using Eq.(65) the dependence of crossover temperature on magnetic field can be written as

$$T_c=2.9\mathrm{exp}\left(\left[\frac{3.2}{H}\right]^2\right)$$
(66)
where temperature is measured in Kelvin while magnetic field in Tesla. Eq.(66) provides a good agreement with the results reported in Ref. .

## 6 Conclusion

We considered the system of a two-dimensional electron gas in the presence of both the disorder and the Coulomb interaction in a weak perpendicular magnetic field. The effective low energy theory describing electrons at the partially filled $`N`$-th Landau level was derived in the case of a weak magnetic field ($`Nr_s1`$) and a weak interaction ($`r_s1`$). The modified electron-electron interaction for electrons on the partially filled Landau level takes into account the screening from the other electrons on the occupied Landau levels. We also presented the exchange corrections to the thermodynamical and chemical potentials in the presence of disorder.

The theory proposed allows us to take into account the effects of disorder in the problems connected with the behavior of a two-dimensional electron gas in the weak magnetic field. How disorder affects the formation of stripes, bubble phase , tunneling density of states, spin excitations, tunneling conductivity and so on can be investigated.

We discussed the effect of disorder on the exchange enhancement of the $`g`$-factor and the simplest spin excitations on the partially filled Landau level. We obtained an additional dependence of the effective $`g`$-factor as a function of the magnetic field, the suppression of the effective mass and the decay rate of the spin wave excitations.

We also investigated an electron tunneling into a two-dimensional electron liquid with a weak disorder in a weak magnetic field. We obtained the enhancement of the gap in the tunneling density of states and nonlinear dependence of tunneling conductivity on the applied bias.

## 7 Acknowledge

Author is grateful to M.A. Baranov, M.V. Feigel’man, and A.S. Iosselevich for useful discussions. Author thanks M.A. Baranov for some critical remarks during the manuscript preparation.

## 8 Appendix A

In this appendix the calculation of the term $`S_\mu `$ in action (29) is presented. This term appears after performing the integration over the longitudinal fluctuations and equals

$$S_\mu =\frac{1}{2}\left(S_2[\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }},\mathrm{\Psi },\delta P,\lambda ]\right)^2_{\delta P}$$
(A.1)
where $`\mathrm{}_{\delta P}`$ means the average with the propagator of the $`\delta P`$ field (28). One can obtain

$$S_\mu =\delta S_1+\delta S_2+\delta S_3$$
(A.2)
where

$$\delta S_1=T^2d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1d^2\stackrel{}{r}_2\left(\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\widehat{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{G}_0\widehat{\lambda }\mathrm{\Psi }2tr\widehat{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{G}_0\widehat{\lambda }G_0\right)$$
(A.3)
$`\delta S_2=T^2{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1\mathrm{}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_4\underset{k,n,m}{\overset{\alpha \beta }{}}\lambda _m^\beta (\stackrel{}{r}_1)D_{nm}^{\alpha \alpha }(k;\stackrel{}{r}_3,\stackrel{}{r}_4)\pi _0^n(m;\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r}_2)L_{n,n+m}^{\alpha \beta ,\alpha \alpha }(\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{r}_4)}`$ (A.4)
$`\delta S_3={\displaystyle \frac{T^2}{2}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1\mathrm{}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_4\underset{k,l,n,m}{\overset{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }{}}D_{nm}^{\alpha \beta }(k;\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r}_2)D_{nm}^{\gamma \delta }(l;\stackrel{}{r}_3,\stackrel{}{r}_4)L_{n,n+m}^{\alpha \beta ,\gamma \delta }(\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{r}_4)}`$ (A.5)
Here

$`D_{nm}^{\alpha \beta }(k;\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r}_2)`$ (A.6)
$`=`$ $`\left(\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k^\alpha (\stackrel{}{r}_1)\mathrm{\Psi }_{n+m}^\beta (\stackrel{}{r}_2)2\delta _{k,n+m}\delta ^{\alpha \beta }G_0^{n+m}(\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{r}_1)\right)\lambda _{nk}^\alpha (\stackrel{}{r}_1)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^n(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r}_2)`$
$`+`$ $`\left(\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_n^\beta (\stackrel{}{r}_1)\mathrm{\Psi }_k^\alpha (\stackrel{}{r}_2)2\delta _{k,n}\delta ^{\alpha \beta }G_0^n(\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{r}_1)\right)\lambda _{knm}^\beta (\stackrel{}{r}_1)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^{n+m}(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{r}_2)`$
and $`L_{m_1m_2}^{\alpha \beta ,\gamma \delta }`$ is the propagator of the longitudinal fluctuations (28).

Performing the integration over the plasmon field, one obtains from the $`S_\mu `$ term

$$S_\mu \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_1+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_2+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_3}{T}+(\delta \mu _1+\delta \mu _2+\delta \mu _3)d^2\stackrel{}{r}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(\stackrel{}{r})\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{r})$$
(A.7)
where second-order corrections to the thermodynamic potential are given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_1}{L_xL_y}}`$ $`=`$ $`T^2{\displaystyle \underset{nm}{}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}G_0^n(0,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{~}{G}_0^m(\stackrel{}{r},0)U_{eff}(mn,\stackrel{}{r})}`$ (A.8)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_2}{L_xL_y}}`$ $`=`$ $`2T^2{\displaystyle \underset{nm}{}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1d^2\stackrel{}{r}_2\left(G_0^n(0,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{~}{G}_0^{n+m}(\stackrel{}{r},0)+\stackrel{~}{G}_0^n(\stackrel{}{r},0)G_0^{n+m}(0,\stackrel{}{r})\right)}`$
$`\times `$ $`U_{eff}(m,\stackrel{}{r}_1)\pi _0^n(m,\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2)L_{n,n+m}^{\alpha \alpha ,\alpha \alpha }(\stackrel{}{r}_2\stackrel{}{r})`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_3}{L_xL_y}}`$ $`=`$ $`2T^2{\displaystyle \underset{nm}{}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1d^2\stackrel{}{r}_2\left(G_0^n(0,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{~}{G}_0^{n+m}(\stackrel{}{r},0)+G_0^{n+m}(0,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{~}{G}_0^n(\stackrel{}{r},0)\right)}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left(G_0^n(0,\stackrel{}{r}_1)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^{n+m}(\stackrel{}{r}_1,0)+G_0^{n+m}(0,\stackrel{}{r}_1)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^n(\stackrel{}{r}_1,0)\right)U_{eff}(m,\stackrel{}{r}_2)L_{n,n+m}^{\alpha \alpha ,\alpha \alpha }(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1+\stackrel{}{r}_2)`$
The above corrections are negligible in the parameter $`N^1`$ compared with the correction determined by equation (35).

The corrections to the chemical potential are such as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mu _1}{2\pi l^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`T{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}P_N(0,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{~}{G}_0^m(\stackrel{}{r},0)U_{eff}(m,\stackrel{}{r})}`$ (A.9)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mu _2}{2\pi l^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`4T{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1d^2\stackrel{}{r}_2P_N(0,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{~}{G}_0^m(\stackrel{}{r},0)U_{eff}(m,\stackrel{}{r}_1)\pi _0^0(m,\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2)L_{0,m}^{\alpha \alpha ,\alpha \alpha }(\stackrel{}{r}_2\stackrel{}{r})}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mu _3}{2\pi l^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`8T^2{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{r}d^2\stackrel{}{r}_1d^2\stackrel{}{r}_2P_N(0,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{~}{G}_0^m(\stackrel{}{r},0)U_{eff}(m,\stackrel{}{r}_1)L_{0,m}^{\alpha \alpha ,\alpha \alpha }(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1+\stackrel{}{r}_2)}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left(G_0^0(0,\stackrel{}{r}_1)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^m(\stackrel{}{r}_1,0)+G_0^m(0,\stackrel{}{r}_1)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^0(\stackrel{}{r}_1,0)\right)`$
The second and third corrections are negligible in the parameter $`N^1`$ compared with the first term. Hence the shift of the chemical potential $`\delta \mu `$ is determined mainly by the first correction $`\delta \mu _1`$.

## 9 Appendix B

In this appendix the evaluation of the polarization operator $`\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega _n,q)`$ is presented. The condition $`\omega _c\tau 1`$ is assumed to be hold. Then

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega _n,q)=T\underset{m}{}\pi ^m(\omega _n,q)$$
(B.1)
The calculation of the polarization operator $`\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega _n,q)`$ is analogous to that given in Ref. . The wave vectors $`qR_c/l^2`$ are considered.

Using equation (31), one immediately obtains

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(\zeta _n,Q)=\frac{2m}{\pi }\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{𝒥_j^2(Q)}{j^2+\zeta _n}[j^2\frac{1}{\pi \tau \omega _c}_j(\zeta _n))]$$
(B.2)
where

$`_j(\zeta _n)={\displaystyle \frac{j^2(j^2+3\zeta _n^2)}{\zeta _n^2(j^2+\zeta _n^2)}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}\pi \zeta _n}{\pi \zeta _n}}+4{\displaystyle \frac{j\zeta _n}{j^2+\zeta _n^2}}\mathrm{arctan}{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta _n}{j}}+{\displaystyle \frac{j^2\zeta _n^2}{j^2+\zeta _n^2}}\mathrm{ln}(1+2\tau \omega _c\zeta _n)`$ (B.3)
Here two parameters $`\zeta _n=\omega /\omega _c`$ ($`\omega =2\pi Tn`$) and $`Q=qR_c`$ are introduced. The transformation of a series (B.2) into the integral form yields the asymptotic form of the polarization operator in the different regimes. In the static limit $`\zeta _n1`$

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(\zeta _n,Q)=\frac{m}{\pi }\left(\left(1\frac{\pi }{6\tau \omega _c}\right)(1𝒥_0^2(Q))+\frac{\mathrm{ln}(1+2\omega _c\tau \zeta _n)}{2\pi \omega _c\tau }\xi (Q)+𝒪(\zeta _n^2)\right)$$
(B.4)
where the function $`\xi (x)`$ is defined as

$$\xi (x)=\underset{0}{\overset{\pi }{}}\frac{dy}{\pi }𝒥_0(2x\mathrm{sin}\frac{y}{2})\left[(y\pi )^2\frac{\pi ^2}{3}\right]$$
(B.5)
and its asymptotic form is given by

$$\xi (x)=\{\begin{array}{ccc}x^2\hfill & ,& \hfill x1\\ \frac{\pi }{3x}(2\mathrm{sin}2x)\hfill & ,& \hfill x1\end{array}$$
(B.6)
In the hydrodynamic limit $`qR_c1`$ we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(\zeta _n,Q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{1+\zeta _n^2}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi \tau \omega _c}}_1(\zeta _n)\right]`$ (B.7)
## 10 Appendix C

In this appendix the evaluation of the corrections to the thermodynamic and chemical potentials are presented.

### 10.1 Thermodynamic potential correction

Using equation (35), one can separate the thermodynamic potential correction into the exchange and correlation ones as follows

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_{ex}+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_c$$
(C.1)
$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_{ex}}{L_xL_y}=\frac{T}{2}\underset{n}{}\frac{d^2\stackrel{}{q}}{(2\pi )^2}U_0(q)\mathrm{\Pi }(n,q)$$
(C.2)
$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_c}{L_xL_y}=\frac{T}{2}\underset{n}{}\frac{d^2\stackrel{}{q}}{(2\pi )^2}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\alpha \frac{\alpha U_0^2(q)\mathrm{\Pi }^2(n,q)}{1+\alpha U_0(q)\mathrm{\Pi }(n,q)}$$
(C.3)
The exchange correction gives the leading contribution  and can be written in the following way

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_{ex}}{L_xL_y}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi l^3}}{\displaystyle \underset{mN}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑xe^{x^2/2}L_N^1({\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2}})L_m({\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2}})\left(\mathrm{\Theta }(Nm)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi \omega _c\tau }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{mN}}\right)`$ (C.4)
where $`L_n^m`$ stands for the Laguerre polynomials. The above equation in the case $`N1`$ goes over into equation (47).

### 10.2 Chemical potential correction

Using equation (37), one can separate the chemical potential correction onto exchange and correlation ones, respectively,

$$\delta \mu =\delta \mu _{ex}+\delta \mu _c$$
(C.5)
$$\delta \mu _{ex}=2\pi l^2T\underset{n}{}d^2\stackrel{}{r}U_0(r)P_N(0,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{~}{G}_0^n(\stackrel{}{r},0)$$
(C.6)
$$\delta \mu _c=2\pi l^2T\underset{n}{}\frac{d^2\stackrel{}{q}}{(2\pi )^2}P_N(q)\stackrel{~}{G}_0^n(q)\frac{U_0^2(q)\mathrm{\Pi }(n,q)}{1+U_0(q)\mathrm{\Pi }(n,q)}$$
(C.7)
The exchange correction gives the leading contribution  and can be written in the following way

$`\delta \mu _{ex}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{l}}{\displaystyle \underset{mN}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑xe^{x^2/2}L_N({\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2}})L_m({\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2}})\left(\mathrm{\Theta }(Nm)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \omega _c\tau }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{mN}}\right)`$ (C.8)
The above equation in the case $`N1`$ leads to

$$\delta \mu _{ex}=\frac{2e^2}{\pi l^2}(2N)^{1/2}\left[1\frac{\mathrm{ln}N}{8N}+\frac{1}{4\pi \omega _c\tau }\frac{1}{2N}\left(\underset{1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{dt}{t}\mathrm{ln}(1e^t)+\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}\frac{dt}{t}\mathrm{ln}\frac{1e^t}{t}\frac{\pi ^2}{3}\right)\right]$$
(C.9)