Fractional statistics, Hanbury-Brown and Twiss correlations and the quantum Hall effect

The direct detection of the statistics of the quasiparticles in the quantum Hall effect has so far eluded experimental discovery. Here a quantum transport geometry is analyzed, which could provide a link to the fractional statistics via the measurement of low frequency noise correlations. The proposal constitutes an analog of the Hanbury-Brown and Twiss experiment, this time for three chiral edges – one injector edge and two collectors. Luttinger liquid theory reveals that the real time correlator decays much slower than in the case of fermions, and exhibits oscillations with a frequency scale corresponding to the applied bias multiplied by the quasiparticle charge. The zero frequency noise correlations are negative at filling factor 1/3 as for bare electrons (anti-bunching). However they are strongly reduced in amplitude, which constitutes a first evidence of unusual correlations. The noise correlations become positive (suggesting bunching) for ν⩽1/5, however with a much reduced amplitude, when one computes the noise assuming that only the most relevant operators contribute. To cite this article: R. Guyon et al., C. R. Physique 3 (2002) 697–707.