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# Theory of the spin singlet filling factor 𝜈=2 quantum Hall droplet

## I Introduction

In strong magnetic fields, electrons confined in quasi-two-dimensional quantum dots form quantum Hall droplets (QHD).dot reviews  The simplest examples of QHDs are the spin polarised $`\nu =1`$ droplet and the spin singlet $`\nu =2`$ droplet. The $`\nu =2`$ QHD corresponds to a droplet of electrons occupying the increasing in energy spin-up and spin-down states of the lowest Landau level (LLL).ciorga00  QHDs have been extensively investigated experimentallyciorga00 ; tarucha00 ; hawrylak99 ; austing99 ; tarucha96 ; ray secs ; mceuen ; klein ; osterkamp ; sachrajda ; marcus ; weis ; blick  and theoretically.ciorga00 ; hawrylak99 ; mceuen ; pawel secs ; allan dot ; eric allan mike ; wen ; oaknin ; imamura ; pawel dot imp ; arek spectral  Theoretically, the QHD at filling factor $`\nu =1`$ has attracted most attention.allan dot ; eric allan mike ; wen ; klein  Experimentally, however, the $`\nu =1`$ spin polarised droplet is not easily identified in the Coulomb blockade (CB) addition spectrum.osterkamp  By contrast, the most pronounced feature in the addition spectrum of quantum dots, the $`\nu =2`$ line, is believed to originate from the formation of the $`\nu =2`$ QHD.ray secs  Not surprisingly, recent experiments in quantum dots with controlled electron numbers,tarucha00  and controlled electron numbers combined with spin polarised injection/detectionciorga00  concentrated on the $`\nu =2`$ QHD. Such a droplet is an example of a chiral Fermi liquid, with both charge and spin excitations, and as such can shed light on the current problem of spin and charge separation in correlated electron systems. Because this droplet is unstable at low magnetic fields against the transfer of electrons to the higher Landau level, it offers new spectroscopic opportunities as well as a more stringent test of various approximations to the quantum dot problem. Despite experimental interest and theoretical opportunities, the detailed physical understanding of the $`\nu =2`$ QHD in terms of electron numbers, confining energy, magnetic field, and characteristic CB spectrum is rather limited. In this paper we fill this gap and develop a theory of spin singlet QHD at $`\nu =2`$ in parabolic quantum dots. The parabolic confinement is chosen because it is a general feature of soft confining potentials in gated lateral and vertical devices, as well as in lens shaped self-assembled quantum dots. The excitation spectrum and the stability of the droplet as a function of the magnetic field, electron number $`N_e`$, confining energy $`\omega _0`$, and Zeeman energy $`E_z`$ is determined. The spin-singlet $`\nu =2`$ droplet is found to be unstable due to the transfer of electrons into the second Landau level at low magnetic fields and due to spin flip at the edge at higher magnetic field. Using Hartree-Fock, spin-density functional, and exact diagonalisation methods we determine the stability conditions of the droplet, and the characteristic addition and current amplitude CB spectrum. We show that above a critical number of electrons $`N_c`$, the unpolarised $`\nu =2`$ quantum-Hall droplet ceases to be a ground state in favor of spin-polarised phases. The signature of this transition turns out to be almost invisible in the position of CB peaks, but results in the reversal of the current-amplitude modulation at the $`\nu =2`$ line with increasing particle number, as observed in recent experiments.ciorga01  We find this reversal to be very sensitive to electronic correlations.

Our paper is organized as follows: In Sec. II we define the single particle spectrum, the interacting system, and the $`\nu =2`$ QHD. In Sec. III we analyse the properties of the $`\nu =2`$ QHD in the lowest Landau level approximation. We calculate the charge and spin excitation spectrum, derive the expressions describing conditions for electron transfer to the second Landau level and for the spin flip at the edge, and calculate the phase diagram. We end with the calculation of the pattern of the addition spectrum characteristic to the $`\nu =2`$ QHD. In Sec. IV we extend the calculation of the phase diagram to include Landau level mixing within Hartree-Fock, exact diagonalisation using one pair excitations, and spin-density functional theory in local density approximation (LSDA). Sec. V is devoted to amplitude modulation patterns expected in spin blockade (SB) spectroscopy. We identify sets of configurations responsible for SB amplitude modulation patterns both in the $`\nu =2`$ phase and in the region of the phase diagram corresponding to the breakdown of the spin singlet droplet. We show that only inclusion of correlations allows us to obtain reversal of amplitude modulation along the $`\nu =2`$ line observed in experiment. Sec. VI summarizes our results.

## II The model

### II.1 Single particle states and non-interacting electron picture

The energy spectrum $`E_{mn\sigma }`$ and eigenstates $`|m,n,\sigma `$ of an electron localized on a quasi-two-dimensional parabolic quantum dot are that of two harmonic oscillators in states $`m,n`$: $`E_{mn\sigma }=\mathrm{\Omega }_+\left(n+\frac{1}{2}\right)+\mathrm{\Omega }_{}\left(m+\frac{1}{2}\right)+g\mu B\sigma `$, and $`|m,n;\sigma =\sqrt{\frac{1}{m!n!}}(a^+)^m(b^+)^n|0,0;\sigma `$, where $`a^+,b^+`$ are harmonic oscillator operators and $`\sigma `$ denotes electron spin pawel secs . The two harmonic frequencies are $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\pm =(\mathrm{\Omega }\pm \omega _c)/2`$ ($`\mathrm{}=1`$ for the rest of this work), $`\omega _c=eB/m^{}c`$ is the cyclotron energy, $`l_0=1/(m^{}\omega _c)^{1/2}`$ is the magnetic length, $`m^{}`$ is the effective mass, $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\sqrt{\omega _c^2+4\omega _0^2}`$, and $`g\mu B=E_z`$ is the Zeeman energy. With increasing magnetic field the energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$ decreases to zero while $`\mathrm{\Omega }_+`$ increases and approaches cyclotron energy. When the magnetic field increases, the states $`|m,n=0`$ evolve into the states of the lowest Landau level while the states $`|m,n=1`$ evolve into the states of the second Landau level. The single particle energy levels $`E(m,0,\sigma )`$ and $`E(0,1,\sigma )`$ as a function of the magnetic field B are shown in Fig. 1. For illustration purposes a very high Zeeman energy of $`E_z=0.15`$ meV/T, comparable to the kinetic energy quantization $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$, was used. We see that in high magnetic fields there are low energy states $`|m,0,\pm `$ lower than the lowest energy orbital $`|m=0,n=1`$ of the second Landau level. They form a ladder of states with energies $`E_{m,0,\pm }=\mathrm{\Omega }_+\left(0+\frac{1}{2}\right)+\mathrm{\Omega }_{}\left(m+\frac{1}{2}\right)\pm \frac{1}{2}g\mu B`$. This ladder of states is marked by bars in Fig.1. When these lowest energy states are occupied by $`N_e=2N`$ electrons, a finite $`\nu =2`$ spin-singlet chiral Fermi liquid droplet is formed as shown in Fig. 1b. In additon to occupied and empty lowest Landau level orbitals, there is a parallel ladder of second Landau level states $`|m,n=1`$ at higher energy. Decreasing the magnetic field lowers the energy of the $`|m=0,n=1`$ state with respect to the energy of the highest occupied $`|m=N1,0`$ orbital of the lowest Landau level, and an electron transfer occurs. The $`|0,1`$ state to which an electron transfers corresponds to an orbital localised in the center of the dot, while the highest occupied state $`|m,0`$ corresponds to an orbital localised at the edge of the droplet. This is illustrated in Fig. 2(a) which shows charge distributions for the states $`|0,1`$ and $`|9,0`$. In Fig. 2(b) we show the total charge distribution of 14 electrons in the $`\nu =2`$ droplet, the distribution after an electron transfers to the center, and the difference of charge distributions between these two configurations. Because the center configuration has one extra electron in the center, and a vacancy (hole) at the edge, this charge difference is positive near the center of the dot, and negative near the edge of the droplet. Hence the crossing of orbitals leads to the redistribution of electrons from the edge (edge configuration) to the center (center configuration). The crossing, marked by squares in Fig. 1, takes place at different magnetic fields $`B_1`$ for different particle numbers. Varying the electron number allows us to trace this crossing of single particle levels. This has been pointed out and calculated in a dot with low electron number and strong kinetic energy quantization in Ref. arek secs fir, . Here we develop such a theory for large numbers of electrons.

With increasing magnetic field the Zeeman splitting becomes larger than the kinetic energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$ and the $`\nu =2`$ configuration is unstable against spin flip at the edge.hawrylak99  In Fig. 1 this first spin flip is marked by empty circles for even electron numbers, and by filled circles for odd electron numbers. We see that spin flips take place at different magnetic fields for even and odd electron numbers. However, for a given parity of the electron number the magnetic field $`B_2`$ at which spin flip occurs does not depend on the number of electrons. The center-spin-flip line crosses the edge-spin-flip line at a critical particle number $`N_c`$. Hence we might expect that the phase diagram of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet is finite, i.e., the spin singlet phase exists only for a finite number of electrons. The rest of the paper will be devoted to developing the understanding of how electron-electron interactions modify this single-particle picture.

### II.2 The many-particle Hamiltonian

Denoting the creation (annihilation) operators for electrons in states $`|m,n;\sigma `$ by $`c_{mn\sigma }^+(c_{mn\sigma })`$, the Hamiltonian of the interacting system can be written in second quantization as:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n,\sigma }{}}\epsilon _{mn\sigma }c_{mn\sigma }^+c_{mn\sigma }`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_1n_1m_2n_2m_3n_3m_4n_4\sigma \sigma ^{}}{}}m_1n_1,m_2n_2|V|m_3n_3,m_4n_4c_{m_1n_1\sigma }^+c_{m_2n_2\sigma ^{}}^+c_{m_3n_3\sigma ^{}}c_{m_4n_4\sigma },`$
where $`m_1n_1,m_2n_2|V|m_3n_3m_4n_4`$ are the two-body Coulomb matrix elements defined in Ref. pawel ssc, . The Coulomb matrix elements conserve the angular momentum of the pair during the scattering process: $`m_1n_1+m_2n_2=m_3n_3+m_4n_4`$. They are measured in units of the exchange energy $`E_0`$: $`E_0=\sqrt{2\pi }a_0/l_{eff}`$, where $``$ is the effective Rydberg energy, $`a_0`$ is the effective Bohr radius, and $`l_{eff}=l_0/(1+4\omega _0^2/\omega _c^2)^{1/4}`$ is the effective magnetic length. The Coulomb energy increases with increasing magnetic field.

## III Quantum Hall droplet in the lowest Landau level approximation

In this section we describe the properties of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet in the two lowest Landau level states neglecting mixing between them. This allows for a number of exact and analytical results which make the physics transparent.

### III.1 Ground state of a QHD with 2N electrons

In the lowest Landau level (LLL) the ground state of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet is a product of two spin polarised droplets:

$$|GS(2N)=\underset{m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}c_{m,0}^+\underset{m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}c_{m,0}^+|0.$$
(2)
The total number of electrons $`N_e=2N`$, and the total angular momentum of the droplet, $`R=2_{m=0}^{N1}m`$, are good quantum numbers. In the LLL approximation this state is an exact ground state of the system. It is useful to define electron self-energies $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(m,n,\sigma )`$ at $`\nu =2`$ for a fixed number of electrons $`2N`$:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(m,n,\sigma )=\underset{m^{}=0}{\overset{N1}{}}(2m,n;m^{},0|V|m^{},0;m,nm,n;m^{},0|V|m,n;m^{},0).$$
(3)
This self-energy does not depend on spin, so in what follows the spin index will be dropped. The total energy $`E_{GS}^{2N}=GS(2N)|H|GS(2N)`$ of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet is now given simply by a sum of energies of quasielectrons:

$$E_{GS}^{2N}=\underset{m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}2\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_{}\left(m+\frac{1}{2}\right)+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_+\right)+\mathrm{\Sigma }(m,0).$$
(4)
The electrons are replaced by quasiparticles (electrons dressed with interactions).

### III.2 Excitation spectrum and spectral functions of the QHD with 2N electrons

Let us now analyze the charge and spin excitation spectrum of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet in the LLL. The one-electron charge and spin excited states $`|dm,m,\pm `$ can be labeled by the increase of angular momentum $`dm`$ with respect to the $`\nu =2`$ state. We construct them by removing one electron from one of the occupied states $`|m,\sigma `$ and putting it onto one of the unoccupied states $`|m+dm,\sigma `$:

$$|dm,m,\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}[c_{m+dm,0,}^+c_{m,0,}\pm c_{m+dm,0,}^+c_{m,0,}]|GS(2N),$$
(5)
where $`+`$ refers to spin singlet (charge excitation) and $``$ to spin triplet (spin excitation). To understand the difference between the two excitations we discuss the lowest angular momentum excited states $`dm=+1`$. The spin singlet excitation can be obtained by acting on the $`\nu =2`$ droplet with the center-of-mass operator $`Q^+=_{m,\sigma }(m+1)^{1/2}c_{m+1,0,\sigma }^+c_{m,0,\sigma }`$. The energy of this excitation, measured from the energy of the $`\nu =2`$ state, equals exactly the kinetic energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$, or the energy needed to increase the angular momentum of one electron by one unit. This is exactly what one finds for the $`\nu =1`$ state. The spin triplet excitation on the other hand has the energy of the charge excitation minus twice the exchange energy across the Fermi level $`N1`$, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}2N1;N|V|N1;N`$. Hence, the spin triplet excitations have an energy lower than that of the charge excitations.

The excitation spectrum can be probed by adding one electron to the droplet. The probability of adding an electron to the orbital $`|m,0`$ with energy $`E`$ is given by the spectral functionarek spectral  $`A(m,E)=_f|{}_{f}{}^{}2N+1|c_{m,}^+|GS(2N)|^2\delta (E_f(2N+1)E_0(2N)E).`$ The electron probes all excited final states of the $`2N+1`$ droplet, a reflection of the excitation spectrum of the $`2N`$ droplet. In Fig. 3 we show an example of the calculated spectral function of a $`2N=8`$ electron droplet at $`\nu =2`$ obtained by exact diagonalisation techniqueshawrylak99 ; arek spectral  for $`\omega _c/\omega _0=0.2`$. The spectral function of the noninteracting system describes an addition of an electron to empty states with energy spacing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$ and probablity of one. In a Fermi liquid this noninteracting picture would be only slightly modified by interactions. However, in the quantum dot the quasiparticle picture breaks down already at the first excited state, and for the energy $`3\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$ the spectral function is already almost zero. Moreover, we see that even though there are many more states than in the noninteracting picture, these states form bunches which leads to a discrete density of states. The bunching and the separation of bunches is controlled by Coulomb interactions rather than by the single particle energy levels.

### III.3 Spin flip excitation spectrum of QHD with 2N electrons

Let us now turn to a detailed analysis of the spin flip excitations of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet. We start with the center configuration. It involves an electron transfer from the highest occupied orbital of the lowest Landau level to the lowest energy state of the second Landau level accompanied by a spin flip: $`|C(2N)=c_{0,1,}^+c_{N1,0,}|GS(2N).`$ This state corresponds to two electrons with parallel spin (triplet state), one in the center of the droplet and one at the edge. There is only one state with this angular momentum and spin in the subspace of one-pair excitations on two Landau levels, so this is an exact eigenstate of the Hamiltonian. The two electrons involved cannot be distinguished from the rest of electrons. To account for all electrons it is better to think of a created electron as a quasi-electron and a removed electron as a quasi-hole. The energy of the electron-hole pair is given by a difference in the energy of a quasi-electron in the center orbital and a quasi-hole at the edge of the droplet, plus their attraction:

$`E(C)^{2N}`$ $`=`$ $`E_{GS}^{2N}+\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_++\mathrm{\Sigma }(0,1){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_z\right)\left((N1)\mathrm{\Omega }_{}+\mathrm{\Sigma }(N1,0)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_z\right)`$ (6)
$``$ $`N1,0;0,1|V|0,1;N1,0.`$
The energy of the quasi-electron and quasi-hole pair depends on the total number of electrons in the $`\nu =2`$ droplet. This interpretation of the triplet state as a collective state differs from the two-electron model of Tarucha et al.tarucha00  When the magnetic field $`B`$ is lowered beyond a critical value $`B_1`$, the energy of the center configuration becomes lower than the energy of the $`\nu =2`$ configuration, the $`\nu =2`$ spin singlet droplet becomes unstable, and a spin triplet center configuration becomes the ground state.

We now turn to the breakdown of stability of the droplet due to spin flip at the edge. The spin flip wavefunctions can be generated from the droplet at filling factor $`\nu =2`$ by removing a spin up electron at $`|N1,0`$ and creating a spin down electron at the first available state at the edge $`|N,0`$ (a spin exciton): $`|E(2N)=c_{N,0,}^+c_{N1,0,}|GS(2N).`$ The process described here is equivalent to creating a hole (a missing spin-up electron) below the Fermi level, and a spin down electron at the edge. Similarly to Eq. (6), we can easily calculate the energy of this configuration:

$`E(E)^{2N}`$ $`=`$ $`E_{GS}^{2N}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{}E_z`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(N,0)\mathrm{\Sigma }(N1,0)N1,0;N,0|V|N,0;N1,0.`$
As compared to the energy of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet, the energy of the edge spin-flip exciton is increased by the kinetic energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$, and lowered by the Zeeman energy. The quasi-electron and the quasi-hole are dressed by their self-energies, and they attract each other. As the magnetic field is increased, the energy of the edge spin-flip configuration becomes lower than the energy of the $`\nu =2`$ spin singlet droplet, and the triplet edge configuration becomes the ground state. The magnetic field at which this takes place will be referred to as $`B_2`$. The calculated difference of self-energies across the Fermi level is much smaller than the vertex correction, which controls the value of the magnetic field where the spin flip occurs. The vertex correction in turn depends on $`N`$, hence $`B_2`$ depends on the number of electrons.

### III.4 Phase diagram of QHD with 2N electrons

We can now use Eqs. (6), (7) to determine the critical magnetic fields $`B_1`$, $`B_2`$ as a function of the number of electrons $`N_e=2N`$ for different confinement energies $`\omega _0`$ (independent of $`N`$) and Zeeman energy $`E_z=0.02`$ meV/T appropriate for GaAs. For the GaAs Zeeman energy and e.g. $`\omega _0=6`$ meV , the Zeeman splitting of single-particle levels in Fig. 1 would now be barely visible, and no spin flips would occur in the experimentally accessible range of magnetic fields. Then, the model of noninteracting electrons would not allow for edge spin flips,hawrylak99  however the center spin-flip transition would still be possible. The inclusion of interactions modifies this picture. The calculated phase diagrams are shown in Fig. 4. We find that the stability of phases is strongly affected by $`\omega _0`$ to the extent that the $`\nu =2`$ phase does not seem to be stable for $`\omega _0<4`$ meV. For larger confinement energies the phase diagram qualitatively resembles the noninteracting phase diagram of Fig. 1. Quantitatively, the main difference between these two approaches is visible in the behavior of the $`\nu =2`$ \- edge spin flip phase boundary, independent on the number of electrons in the noninteracting picture, but strongly affected by the size of the droplet of interacting electrons. Also, in the single-particle picture the center spin flip - $`\nu =2`$ phase boundary has a parabolic shape (traces the kinetic energy of the $`|0,1,`$ orbital), which is not preserved in Fig. 4. The key observation common to both approaches is that for any $`\omega _0>4`$ meV the $`\nu =2`$ phase is stable only up to a critical number of electrons $`N_c`$. This critical number of electrons increases with increasing $`\omega _0`$. Thus, a large droplet is expected to consist of a bulk $`\nu =2`$ core and a spin polarised edge.

### III.5 Quasi-electron in QHD with $`2N+1`$ electrons

In transport experiments one does not measure directly the energies of configurations discussed above. The measured quantity is the chemical potential, i.e., the difference between the ground state energies of the $`2N+1`$\- and $`2N`$-electron droplet.pawel secs  Therefore now we must discuss the system of $`2N+1`$ electrons, where we consider the extra electron as a quasi-electron added to the $`N_e=2N`$ electron droplet.

The ground state configuration consists of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet and an extra electron on the $`|N,0`$ orbital. The energy of this state is the energy of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet plus the energy of the quasi-electron:

$$E_{GS}^{2N+1}=E_{GS}^{2N}+\left(N+\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_{}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_+\frac{1}{2}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(N,0),$$
(8)
which includes the self-energy evaluated for the $`2N`$ electron droplet.

The center configuration is obtained by transferring the quasi-electron to the center orbital. The energy of this configuration is given by:

$$E(C)^{2N+1}=E_{GS}^{2N}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_{}+\left(1+\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_+\frac{1}{2}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(0,1).$$
(9)
The first-spin-flip state can be generated from the droplet at filling factor $`\nu =2`$ and a quasi-electron at the edge by removing a spin up electron at $`|N1,0`$ and creating a spin down electron at the first available state at the edge, i.e., $`|N+1,0`$. This is the $`\nu =2`$ configuration with one hole and two additional spin down electrons at the edge, a spin-flip trion, whose energy is given by:

$`E(E)^{2N+1}`$ $`=`$ $`E_{GS}^{2N}+\left[\left(N+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(N,0)\right]`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`\left[\left(N+1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(N+1,0)\right]`$
$``$ $`\left[\left(N1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_++{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(N1,0)\right]`$
$``$ $`N1,0;N,0|V|N,0;N1,0N1,0;N+1,0|V|N+1,0;N1,0`$
$`+`$ $`N+1,0;N,0|V|N,0;N+1,0N+1,0;N,0|V|N+1,0;N,0.`$
The energy of the first spin flip configuration for odd electron numbers is a sum of the energies of a quasi-electron at $`m=N`$, a quasi-electron at $`m=N+1`$, a quasi-hole at $`m=N1`$, the attractive interaction of electrons with a quasi-hole, and the direct and exchange interaction among the two electrons of the trion.

In analogy to the $`2N`$ electron case, we expect to observe ranges of magnetic field in which each of these three configurations becomes the ground state of the QHD.

### III.6 Addition spectrum

We can now calculate the addition spectrum (chemical potential) of the $`2N`$ electron droplet, defined as $`\mu (2N)=E(2N+1)E(2N)`$. The chemical potential as a function of the magnetic field exhibits features corresponding to changes in the ground state energies of the $`2N`$ and of $`2N+1`$ droplet. Let us start with the $`\nu =2`$ $`2N`$ droplet and add an extra quasi-electron at the edge. The addition energy to do so, or the chemical potential in this magnetic field range,

$$\mu _3(2N)=E_{GS}^{2N+1}E_{GS}^{2N}=N\mathrm{\Omega }_{}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{1}{2}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(N,0),$$
(11)
is a sum of the kinetic energy and self-energy at the edge of the droplet. The kinetic energy contribution increases with decreasing magnetic field. At a critical value $`B_1^{}`$ of the magnetic field the quasi-electron transfers from the edge to the center of the dot (transition in the $`2N+1`$ droplet), while the $`2N`$ electron droplet remains stable. In this new configuration the addition energy

$$\mu _2(2N)=E(C)^{2N+1}E_{GS}^{2N}=\mathrm{\Omega }_++\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{1}{2}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(0,1),$$
(12)
is a sum of the kinetic and the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(0,1)`$ of the quasi-electron in the center of the droplet. The energy to add a quasi-electron to the center is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_+`$ and decreases with decreasing magnetic field. Therefore the chemical potential has an upward cusp at $`B=B_1^{}`$.

When the magnetic field is lowered below $`B_1`$, the $`2N`$ electron droplet becomes unstable and a spin triplet magneto-exciton center configuration is formed. The magneto-exciton consists of an electron in the center and a hole at the edge. The electron in the center cancels out in the additon spectrum and the chemical potential now measures the energy of a ”dressed” quasi-hole at the edge of the $`2N`$ droplet, the ”dressing” coming from final state correction in the form of electron-hole attraction:

$`\mu _1(2N)`$ $`=`$ $`E(C)^{2N+1}E(C)^{2N}`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }+(N1)\mathrm{\Omega }_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(N1,0)+N1,0;0,1|V|0,1;N1,0.`$
The kinetic energy of this hole increases with decreasing magnetic field. This tendency is somewhat compensated by the interactions. Hence, at $`B=B_1`$ the addition spectrum exhibits a downward cusp.

Consider now the addition of one electron to an odd, $`2N1`$-electron droplet. In high magnetic fields the initial state consists of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet and a hole on the missing spin up state at the edge. The final state is the $`2N`$-electron $`\nu =2`$ droplet. Thus the extra electron is added to the edge. Its energy is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$ ( renormalized by interactions which depend weakly on the magnetic field), therefore the chemical potential increases with the decreasing magnetic field. As we lower the magnetic field, the final state of $`2N`$ electrons undergoes the first transition at $`B=B_1`$: the center configuration becomes stable. The extra electron occupies the center orbital, the chemical potential in this regime decreases with decreasing magnetic field, and the addition spectrum will exhibit a cusp pointing up. Note that this cusp will be seen at exactly the same magnetic field as the downward cusp described previously for the addition of an extra electron to the even, $`2N`$-electron QHD. Finally, both initial and final configurations contain a center electron. Then, the addition of a spin down electron takes place at the edge, and the chemical potential exhibits a downward cusp and begins to increase with decreasing magnetic field.

In Fig. 5 we show the calculated chemical potentials for a droplet with $`N=1621`$ electrons, with charging energy subtracted. Each addition spectrum contains a segment with energy increasing with increasing magnetic field. We see that the spacing between consecutive pairs of addition curves oscillates between large and small. For addition spectrum of a quasi-electron to a $`2N`$ electron droplet, the spacing corresponds to a difference between the energy to add a quasi-electron with spin down and the energy to add a quasi-hole with spin down (electron with spin up below the Fermi level). In the interacting system, the electron and a quasi-hole are dressed by interactions. The energy difference, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L`$, is the difference in the chemical potential $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L=\mu _3(2N)\mu _1(2N)`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_L=\mathrm{\Omega }_{}E_z+\mathrm{\Sigma }(N,0)\mathrm{\Sigma }(N1,0)N1,0;0,1|V|0,1;N1,0.$$
(14)
Because this energy corresponds to a quasi-electron above the Fermi level and a quasi-hole below, it includes the kinetic and self-energy difference across the Fermi level, plus excitonic correction. This is the final state interaction correction in the spectroscopy involving transfer of electron from the edge into the center of the dot by decreasing magnetic field. The two spins are opposite and we also have to subtract the Zeeman energy. In a noninteracting system the spacing is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}E_z`$.

Similar arguments can be used for the derivation of the other energy difference, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$, in the addition spectrum of the odd electron number, $`2N1`$ droplet:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_S=E_z+N1,0;N1,0|V|N1,0;N1,0N1,0;0,1|V|0,1;N1,0.$$
(15)
The spacing for the odd electron droplet is proportional only to the Zeeman energy and excitonic corrections. If interactions are weak, this spacing should be much smaller than the spacing for even electron droplets. Therefore calculations predict a characteristic pattern in the addition spectrum of the $`\nu =2`$ droplet related to the even or odd number of electrons in the droplet. This pattern, measured experimentally,ciorga01b  is expected to be valid only for electron numbers $`N_e<N_c`$.

## IV Landau level mixing, and exchange and correlation effects in QHD

In the previous section we were able to derive a number of rigorous results by restricting Hilbert space to states derived from the two lowest Landau levels without their mixing. We now turn to include Landau level mixing and correlations.

### IV.1 Hartree-Fock calculations in two lowest LL

We start with the Hartree-Fock (HF) calculations, whose simplest example involves only two Landau levels. We write the $`\nu =2`$ HF wave function as a product of variational wave functions in each spin channel $`\sigma `$ and angular momentum channel $`m`$:

$$|GS(2N)=\underset{\sigma }{}\underset{m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}(a_{m,0,\sigma }^{}c_{m,0,\sigma }^++a_{m,1,\sigma }^{}c_{m+1,1,\sigma }^+)|0.$$
(16)
The $`N`$ coefficients $`a_{m,0,\sigma }^{}`$, $`a_{m,1,\sigma }^{}`$, $`m=0,1,..,N1`$ are determined by either minimizing the total energy subject to normalisation of the wave function or by solving the eigenvalue problem of the HF Hamiltonian. The HF Hamiltonian is defined by noting that the HF wave function allows us to define expectation values $`\rho _{i,j}=c_i^+c_j`$ of the density matrix in terms of the coefficients $`a_{m,0,\sigma }^{}`$, $`a_{m,1,\sigma }^{}`$. For example, $`c_{m,0,\sigma }^+c_{m,0,\sigma }=a_{m,0,\sigma }^{}a_{m,0,\sigma }`$, $`c_{m+1,1,\sigma }^+c_{m+1,1,\sigma }=a_{m,1,\sigma }^{}a_{m,1,\sigma }`$, are simply occupations of the HF level $`0`$ and the HF level $`1`$ in the angular momentum channel $`m`$, while $`c_{m+1,1,\sigma }^+c_{m,0,\sigma }=a_{m+1,1,\sigma }^{}a_{m,0,\sigma }=p_{m,\sigma }^{}`$ are off-diagonal elements (polarisations) of the density matrix. Replacing the two body term in Eq. (1) by a one body and mean-field term the HF Hamiltonian reads:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n,\sigma }{}}\epsilon _{m,n\sigma }c_{m,n\sigma }^+c_{m,n\sigma }`$ (17)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m_1n_1m_2n_2m_3n_3m_4n_4\sigma \sigma ^{}}{}}m_1n_1,m_2n_2|V|m_3n_3,m_4n_4`$
$`\times \left(c_{m_1n_1\sigma }^+c_{m_2n_2\sigma ^{}}^+c_{m_3n_3\sigma ^{}}c_{m_4n_4\sigma }c_{m_1n_1\sigma }^+c_{m_2n_2\sigma ^{}}^+c_{m_4n_4\sigma }c_{m_3n_3\sigma ^{}}\right).`$
The HF Hamiltonian can be further simplified by separating individual angular momentum and spin channels. Neglecting the spin dependence, the effective Hamiltonian in a channel $`l=mn`$ is simply a $`2\times 2`$ matrix:

$`H_{HF}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\epsilon _0(l)+V_{0,0}(l)& V_{0,1}(l)\\ V_{0,1}(l)& \epsilon _1(l)+V_{1,1}\end{array}\right],`$ (20)
where $`V_{i,j}(l)`$ are self-consistent HF fields. For example, $`V_{0,0}(l=m)`$ reads

$`V_{0,0}(l=m)={\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}m,0;k,0|V_{dx}|k,0;m,0a_{m,0}^{}a_{m,0}+m,0;k+1,1|V_{dx}|k+1,1;m,0a_{m,1}^{}a_{m,1}`$
$`+m,0;k+1,1|V_{dx}|k,0;m,0a_{m,1}^{}a_{m,0}+m,0;k,0|V_{dx}|k+1,1;m,0a_{m,0}^{}a_{m,1},`$ (21)
with the direct and exchange matrix elements $`m\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},k\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|V_{dx}|k\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},m\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}=2m\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},k\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|V|k\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},m\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}m\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},k\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|V|m\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},k\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$. An example of the self-consistently calculated HF quasi-particle energies $`E_{HF}(l)`$ for $`N_e=12`$, $`B=3T`$, and $`\omega _0=6`$ meV is shown in Fig. 6(a). Circles denote quasiparticle energies calculated without Landau level mixing while bars show renormalised HF quasiparticle energies. An overall behavior of quasiparticles is similar. The self-consistent HF energies are however lower than the non-self-consistent ones.

A similar HF procedure can be applied to the center and edge spin flip configurations, with the center configuration involving mixing of $`|m=0,n=1`$ and $`|m=1,n=2`$ (third Landau level) states. The resulting total energies can be compared to establish stability ranges of different phases. The resulting HF phase diagram for parameters identical to those in Fig. 4 is shown in Fig. 6. We see that the overall behavior of the phase diagram is similar without and with Landau level mixing: there is a stable $`\nu =2`$ phase up to a critical number of electrons, $`N_c`$, which depends on confinement energy. However, the value of $`N_c`$ and the values of critical fields are significantly different from those obtained in the LLL approximation.

### IV.2 Influence of correlations - electron-hole pair excitations, LSDA, and exact diagonalisation

The center and edge spin flip processes described above involve singlet-triplet transitions, hence they are driven by exchange interaction. The HF approximation includes the exchange, but neglects electronic correlations. Correlations are known to counteract exchange, leading even to a collapse of the Zeeman gap for QHDs in the $`\nu <2`$ regime.hawrylak99  Therefore we attempt to include correlations into our model using three different approaches: (a) one electron-hole pair excitations from the self-consistent HF $`\nu =2`$ ground state, (b) the SDFT/LSDA calculation over a broad range of electron numbers, and (c) exact diagonalization for $`N_e=6`$ and $`N_e=8`$.

We start with one electron-hole pair excitation spectrum in the HF basis. Our HF procedure is spin and space restricted, so the angular momentum and the total spin $`S_z`$ are good quantum numbers. We note that the eigenvector corresponding to the lowest HF eigenvalue of the self-consistent HF Hamiltonian determines coefficients $`a_{m,0,\sigma }^{},a_{m,1,\sigma }^{}`$ not only for occupied but also for unoccupied angular momentum channels. These coefficients allow us to replace the two operators $`c_{m,0,\sigma }^+,c_{m+1,1,\sigma }^+`$ by a single operator $`A_{m,0,\sigma }^+=a_{m,0,\sigma }^{}c_{m,0,\sigma }^++a_{m,1,\sigma }^{}c_{m+1,1,\sigma }^+`$ for all channels. The second self-consistent operator $`A_{m,1,\sigma }^+`$ can be naturally constructed from the eigenvector corresponding to the second excited HF orbital. We can therefore express our old creation operators $`c^+`$ in terms of new operators $`A^+`$ as $`A_{i,l}^+=_jU_{i,j}(l)c_{l+j,j}^+`$ ($`i,j=0,1`$) in each angular momentum and spin channel $`l\sigma `$ and obtain the Hamiltonian in the new basis:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l,k,k^{},\sigma }{}}t_{k,k^{}}(l)A_{kl,\sigma }^+A_{k^{},l,\sigma }`$ (22)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k_1l_1k_2l_2k_3l_3k_4l_4\sigma \sigma ^{}}{}}k_1l_1k_2l_2|V|k_3l_3k_4l_4A_{k_1l_1\sigma }^+A_{k_2l_2\sigma ^{}}^+A_{k_3l_3\sigma ^{}}A_{k_4l_4\sigma },`$
where $`U`$ is the transformation inverse to the one obtained from HF minimisation, and subsequent orthogonalisation procedure.

The renormalised Coulomb matrix elements are expressed now in terms of angular momentum $`l`$ and level index $`k`$ in each angular momentum channel as

$`k_1l_1k_2l_2|V|k_3l_3k_4l_4={\displaystyle \underset{j_1j_2j_3j_4}{}}`$ $`j_1+l_1k_1,j_2+l_2k_2|V|j_3+l_3k_3,j_4+l_4k_4`$ (23)
$`\times U_{k_1,j_1}(l_1)U_{k_2,j_2}(l_2)U_{k_3,j_3}(l_3)U_{k_4,j_4}(l_4).`$
We see that the angular momentum structure of the two scattering particles is unchanged, but the distribution over Landau levels is changed. Similar considerations hold for the renormalised kinetic energy matrix:

$$t_{k,k^{}}(l)=\underset{j}{}U_{kj}(l)U_{k^{}j}(l)\epsilon _j(l),$$
(24)
which is not diagonal in the HF basis.

For each angular momentum channel $`L_{\nu =2}+\delta l`$ we create electron-hole pair triplet excitations from the $`\nu =2`$ ground state: $`A_{k,l+\delta l}^+A_{0l}|\nu =2_{HF}`$, where $`k=0`$ corresponds to an excitation to the first Landau level, possible only for $`\delta l>0`$, and $`k=1`$ corresponds to an excitation to the second Landau level, possible for any $`\delta l>N`$ for a $`2N`$ electron system. The correlated ground state wave function in this angular momentum channel can be then written, in terms of pair excitations, as $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(\delta l)=_{k,l}D_{k,l}A_{k,l+\delta l}^+A_{0l}|\nu =2_{HF}`$. The coefficients $`D_{k,l}`$ and energies of pair excitations are obtained by diagonalising the Hamiltonian matrix (22).

The pair excitation spectrum calculated for $`2N=12`$, $`B=3`$T, $`\omega _0=6`$ meV is shown in Fig. 7 (a), together with HF quasiparticle energies. The energy scale was shifted in such a way that the energy of the $`\nu =2`$ ground state is zero (Zeeman energy is neglected). In the angular momentum channel $`\delta l=6`$ there is only one state, because only one pair excitation is possible (this is the center spin flip configuration). With the increase of $`\delta l`$ the number of inter-Landau level configurations increases. The lowest excitation in each angular momentum channel separates from a band and forms a collective inter-Landau level spin flip mode. Finally, at $`\delta l=+1`$ (the subspace of the edge spin flip), excitations to the first Landau level become possible, and from now on two broad bands of states, separated by a gap, are visible. The lowest energy excitation in each angular momentum channel $`\delta l0`$ also separates from a band and forms a collective intra-Landau level edge spin flip mode. In this approach, the center spin flip state is not renormalized by correlations, but the edge spin flip configuration becomes correlated with single electron-hole pair excitations to the second Landau level.

When the energy of spin flip excitations for any angular momentum becomes lower than the HF ground state, a transition in the droplet takes place. We calculate these excitations over a broad range of electron numbers, magnetic field, and confining energies, and obtain the phase diagram. It is shown in Fig. 7 (b) (dash-dot lines). For comparison we also show the HF phase diagram obtained earlier without (dotted lines) and with Landau level mixing (solid lines). As can be seen, both self-consistent HF and single pair excitation approximations predict (a) the phase boundaries to occur for magnetic fields higher by $`1`$ T, (b) the collapse of the $`\nu =2`$ phase to occur for smaller critical number of electrons $`N_c`$ when compared to those obtained without Landau level mixing.

Let us now compare the HF (solid lines) and the pair excitation (dash-dot lines) approaches. In both of them the low-field $`\nu =2`$ phase boundary (center spin flip) is established by considering only one configuration. Therefore the small discrepancy between the results cannot be attributed to correlation effects, but rather to the difference between the two approaches. In HF the energy of each configuration is found by separate self-consistent procedures, in pair excitations only the $`\nu =2`$ configuration is considered self-consistently, and the center spin flip is an excitation from $`\nu =2`$. This effect also plays a role in the high field $`\nu =2`$ phase boundary, but here the edge spin flip state is correlated with the configurations involving occupation of the second Landau level. Thus the influence of correlations counteracts the exchange, thereby broadening the $`\nu =2`$ phase stability range.

An alternative approach to include correlations for arbitrary electron number is to include exchange and correlation in the SDFT/LSDA approach. Its application proved insightful in the study of many ground state properties of artificial atoms and molecules.ferconi vignale ; austing99 ; koskinen97 ; hirose99 ; serra ; steffens98a ; steffens99 ; wensauer00 ; wensauer01  We apply the local spin density approximation using Tanatar’s and Ceperley’s parametrization of the exchange-correlation potential.tanatar89  To remain consistent with previous approximations, we took only two Landau levels as the variational space for the calculation. The result is shown in Fig. 7 (b) (dashed lines). The low-field $`\nu =2`$ stability edge calculated here does not differ substantially from that obtained previously. However, due to correlations, the $`\nu =2`$ stability range is now increased by $`1.5`$ T. Moreover, the spin singlet remains stable up to $`N_c=38`$ electrons, a number twice that predicted by HF approximation. This stability is also due to the influence of correlations: the exchange effects lower only the energy of spin-polarised states, while correlation effects provide a mechanism to decrease ground state energies for the spin singlet configuration as well.

On the basis of the comparison of several approaches we see that the stability of the spin singlet droplet is a sensitive function of correlations. Different approximations give qualitatively similar results but differ significantly in quantitative predictions.

In order to gauge the validity of different approximations, we calculated the phase diagram using exact diagonalization techniques for electron numbers $`N_e=6`$ and $`N_e=8`$. Details of this approach will be published elsewhere.exactdiag  Here we only note that in this calculation the total angular momentum, total spin and total $`S_z`$ were resolved as good quantum numbers. It reduced the Hilbert space for each set of quantum numbers to a computable size, so that within the 2 Landau-level approximation both exchange and correlations are treated exactly. The results are shown in Fig. 7 (b) (full circles). For $`2N=6`$ we see a stability region of the $`\nu =2`$ phase much broader than that from the pair excitation approximation, but the discrepancy becomes much smaller for a larger number of electrons, where the self-consistent approach is expected to work better. However, the discrepancy between the exact diagonalization and the SDFT/LSDA results does not seem to improve with the increase of the electron number. To analyze this problem we calculated phase diagrams for $`2N=6`$ electrons using SDFT/LSDA and exact diagonalization including three Landau levels. The results (not shown here) indicate that the spin density profiles do not change dramatically with the increase of the number of Landau levels, and therefore the SDFT phase diagram remains similar to that in Fig. 7 (b). On the other hand, the Hilbert space size in the exact diagonalization increases by orders of magnitude, which affects the phase diagram, shifting it towards higher magnetic fields. Approximate calculations for 8 Landau levels reveal a good agreement between SDFT and exact diagonalization., and we rely on predictions of SDFT for large electron numbers in what follows.

## V CB amplitude reversal

Up to now we discussed the $`\nu =2`$ line as the set of features in the position of CB lines reflecting the transfer of one electron from the center to the edge of the QHD. We assumed the electron number to be small enough, so that this transition involved the spin singlet configuration of the even-electron QHD. We established that the existence of pairs of cusps seen in the CB trace was due to a different energy dependence of the center and edge orbitals on the magnetic field. We now turn to describing the behaviour of the droplet in the vicinity of the critical electron number $`N_c`$, where the spin singlet configuration ceases to be the ground state. As can be seen in Figs. 67 (b), beyond $`N_c`$ the $`\nu =2`$ line is continued by another phase boundary, separating the center spin polarised and the edge spin polarised configurations. The transition between these two phases involves the transfer of one electron from the center to the edge of the QHD, but this time the final state is a spin triplet. Because of that the continuation of the $`\nu =2`$ line in the CB trace will exhibit a pair of cusps similar to that observed for a the electron number $`2N<N_c`$. Thus the CB peak position spectroscopy is not expected to reveal any indication of the collapse of the spin singlet phase.

The tunneling spectroscopy conducted in the regime of spin polarised injection/detectionciorga01b  allows, however, to extract information also from the CB peak amplitude. In this regime the energy separation of two different spin species in the two-dimensional elecron gas (2DEG) making up the source and drain reservoirs is converted to the spatial separation of electrons with different spin orientations at the edge of the 2DEG.ciorga01b ; hawrylak99  This spatial separation at the edge drastically influences the tunneling probability of electrons with different spin to and from a quantum dot. Now the electrons injected into the dot are predominantly spin down. Moreover, the tunneling matrix elements are dominated by the overlap of the wave functions of the dot and the reservoirs. Therefore the tunneling event is allowed if the extra spin down electron is added to (or removed from) the edge of the QHD. If the extra electron is spin up, the current amplitude is expected to be much smaller (spin blockade), and if we add a spin down electron to the center, the current amplitude is small due to small wave function overlap. This spin-resolved tunneling should then be sensitive to the collapse of the spin singlet phase, therefore we now focus on the understanding of CB amplitude patterns both below and above the critical electron number.

### V.1 Configurations and corresponding amplitudes

Let us first consider the system of noninteracting electrons with artificially enhanced Zeeman energy (Fig. 1). The collapse of the $`\nu =2`$ phase takes place when the energy of the center orbital crosses the first edge spin flip line denoted by full circles, i.e., at the magnetic field $`7.8`$T, for $`N_c=14`$ electrons.

The configurations adjacent to the $`\nu =2`$ line in the regime of small number of electrons ($`2N<N_c`$) are schematically shown in Fig. 8 (a) for four neighboring electron numbers, $`2N`$ through $`2N+3`$. Let us analyze systematically the expected amplitude pattern starting with the addition of one electron to the $`2N`$-electron QHD. For low magnetic field we add the electron to the center configuration to obtain the center configuration as a final state. The extra electron is added at the edge, but its spin is up, and the spin blockade causes the tunneling current amplitude to be small. As we increase the magnetic field, the $`2N`$-electron QHD undergoes a transition to the spin singlet. The extra electron must be added to the center, but due to small overlap of wave functions the tunneling amplitude is very small. Finally, the $`2N+1`$-electron QHD undergoes a center-edge transition. In this range of magnetic field the extra electron spin down is added to the edge, so we expect the tunneling current to have a high amplitude.

Let us now add one electron to the $`2N+1`$-electron system. For low magnetic fields both $`2N+1`$\- and $`2N+2`$-electron systems are in the respective center configurations. They differ by one spin down electron at the edge, so the tunneling current amplitude is high. For intermediate magnetic fields the $`2N+1`$-electron droplet exhibits the electron transfer to the edge and we must add the spin down electron to the center, which causes the amplitude to be small. For higher magnetic fields the $`2N+2`$-electron droplet becomes a spin singlet, the extra electron must be added at the edge, but with spin up. The spin blockade causes the amplitude to be low. The traces of CB peaks corresponding to these transitions are shown in Fig. 8 (b), with thicker lines marking the sections where a high amplitude is expected.

If the number of electrons $`2N>N_c`$, the spin singlet phase is no longer stable, and the configurations adjacent to the $`\nu =2`$ line are slightly different than those in the normal regime (see Fig. 9). The center configuration for odd electron numbers, instead of being a singlet with one extra electron in the center, acquires a spin polarised edge. Similarly, the edge configuration for even electron numbers, previously a spin singlet, becomes edge spin-polarised. These new configurations strongly influence the addition amplitudes. Upon careful consideration of spin blockade and overlap conditions, we find that now the amplitude pattern is opposite to that observed in the normal regime: the amplitude is high on the low-magnetic field side of the $`\nu =2`$ line when we add an extra electron to the even-electron system. This is summarized in the addition spectrum shown in Fig. 9 (b).

As we can see, the collapse of the $`\nu =2`$ phase manifests itself in the CB spectroscopy by the reversal of the CB current amplitude patterns, as observed in recent experiments.ciorga01b  However, when we increase the magnetic field and the number of electrons further, we encounter the second edge spin flip line, denoted in Fig. 1 by full circles. In this regime the configurations adjacent to the $`\nu =2`$ line will change, resulting in yet another modification of the amplitude pattern. This increasing complexity forces us to go beyond a qualitative model and examine the influence of interactions on our system.

### V.2 Mean-field calculations

We choose two complementary approaches discussed previously: the HF approach in two Landau level approximation and the SDFT/LSDA approach. This choice permits us to examine the influence of direct and exchange interactions and of correlations separately.

The HF analysis is carried out in the way described before, but now it is extended to configurations of both odd and even electron numbers with higher polarised edge. We used the parameters: $`\omega _0=6`$ meV and $`E_z=0.02`$ meV/T. The resulting phase diagrams are shown in Fig. 10. For even electron numbers we observe the breakdown of the $`\nu =2`$ phase at $`2N=20`$ electrons. However, the higher polarised phases do not align favourably for the system to exibit the reversal of amplitudes. In order to observe it, we need to have the center and edge configurations both with total $`S_z=1`$ neighboring the $`\nu =2`$ line. However, as can be seen from Fig. 10 (a), the center configuration with $`S_z=1`$ ceases to be stable in favour of the higher spin-polarised center configuration with $`S_z=2`$ right at the magnetic field and the electron number for which the spin singlet collapses. Compared to the single-particle picture this transition is shifted to much lower magnetic fields. Therefore it can be argued that the favourable alignment of phases takes place just for one electron number, $`2N=20`$. As for the odd electron numbers (Fig. 10 (b)), the phases are aligned favourably for $`2N+1=19`$ and 21 electrons.

So, the characteristic reversal of amplitudes predicted in the single-particle picture will be now observed only in transitions from 19- to 20-electron and from 20- to 21-electron QHD. The reason of this behaviour of the system is the overestimation of the exchange interaction by the HF approach. Because of that, the spin polarised configuration with total $`S_z=2`$ will have artificially lowered energy with respect to the configuration with total $`S_z=1`$ and the transition between these two configurations will occur too early. We established earlier that correlations can counteract these artificially enhanced exchange interactions. Therefore we will now generate the analogous phase diagrams using the SDFT/LSDA approximation.

In what follows, in order to provide a sufficient variational space for the DFT algorithm, we took into account a single-particle basis set with quantum numbers $`n=0,\mathrm{},9`$ and $`m=0,\mathrm{},59`$, i.e., 10 Landau levels. To make contact with experiment, the confinement energy $`\omega _0=1`$ meV, close to the value observed experimentallyciorga01b  has been used. We carried out two calculations: for the normal GaAs Zeeman energy $`E_z=0.02`$ meV/T (Fig. 11), and for the Zeeman energy artificially enhanced by a factor of two (Fig. 12). Let us focus on the odd electron numbers first. Compared to the HF calculation, the range of favourable alignment of phases has been vastly extended - to 5 electron numbers (43 through 51) for normal Zeeman energy, and even 7 electron numbers (35 through 47) for enhanced Zeeman energy. For even electron numbers we observe the breakdown of the spin singlet phase for $`N_c=48`$ and 38 electrons with normal and doubled Zeeman energy, respectively. However, in Fig. 11 for normal Zeeman energy the favourable alignment of phases is again seen only for one electron number, $`2N=50`$, so the amplitude reversal is predicted only for QHD transitions from 49 to 50 electrons and from 50 to 51 electrons. The situation is improved only by enhancing the Zeeman energy (Fig. 12 (a)), which shifts down the energies of spin polarised configurations without changing the energy of the spin singlet. As a result the collapse of the $`\nu =2`$ phase takes place for lower magnetic fields and lower electron number, and the spin flips in question are finally disaligned. We then find a stable reversal of the amplitude modulation for QHDs with 38 to 43 electrons. Note that the sole purpose of enhancing the Zeeman energy was to favorize spin polarised configurations over the spin singlet. This goal could be also attained by including more exchange interaction, perhaps slightly underestimated in the SDFT. Therefore the reversal of amplitude patterns is very sensitive to the balance between exchange and correlations.

## VI Conclusions and outlook

We investigated the physics of the $`\nu =2`$ quantum Hall droplet as a function of the electron number, confinement energy, and the magnetic field. We considered the spin singlet configuration and compared its energy to the energies of configurations with increasing spin polarization, both for even and odd electron numbers. We found that there exists a critical number of electrons $`N_c`$, beyond which the spin singlet phase ceases to be stable at any magnetic field. Then, by considering the energies of configurations adjacent to the $`\nu =2`$ line for the $`2N`$ system, and comparing them to those of the $`2N+1`$ system, we established the characteristic shape of the addition spectra, due to center-edge electronic transitions in the initial or final state. We studied the same configurations in different approaches (HF, electron-hole pair excitation spectra, and SDFT/LSDA) to take into account the electron-electron interactions. All our calculations clearly show the breakdown of the $`\nu =2`$ quantum Hall droplet as a GS configuration with increasing number of electrons and magnetic field. However, depending on the method, this breakdown occurs in different regimes. The Hartree-Fock calculations, treating the exchange energy but neglecting correlations, uncover the basic renormalization effects of the interaction. It acts effectively as an enhanced Zeeman energy, lowering the energies of spin polarised states compared to the noninteracting picture, and causing the spin flip transitions to occur for experimentally observed magnetic fields (below 10 T), and the collapse of the spin singlet phase for a critical number of electrons of order of $`N_c30`$. The inclusion of correlations, carried out by employing the electron-hole pair excitation approach, the SDFT/LSDA approximation, and exact diagonalisation techniques leads to a broadening of the stability range of the spin singlet phase both in magnetic field and in electron number. The reason for this is that unlike the exchange, correlations lower the energies of spin singlet as well as spin polarised configurations.

Then we turned to predicting the signature of the collapse of the spin singlet phase in the addition spectrum. We found that it will not be revealed in the Coulomb blockade peak position, but will be manifested by a reversal of the CB current amplitude patterns. This reversal of amplitudes is almost not recovered upon the inclusion of interactions if the approximation used overestimates exchange or correlations. However, if a proper balance between them is found (e.g., by using an enhanced Zeeman energy), the reversal of amplitude pattern is obtained for a range of electron numbers. These theoretical predictions regarding both CB peak position and amplitude spectra are observed experimentally.ciorga01b

A theoretically and experimentally interesting problem not discussed here is the multiple reversal of the amplitude pattern as suggested by consideration of the noninteracting system. Unfortunately, the experimental investigations have not yet been carried out up to high enough electron number to observe it.

## VII Acknowledgement

We thank Jordan Kyriakidis, Andy Sachrajda, Mariusz Ciorga, and Michel Pioro-Ladriere for helpful discussions. A. W. acknowledges the German Academic Exchange Service (Grant no. D/00/05486) and Institute for Microstructural Sciences for financial support.