Yang I, Kang W, Baldwin K W, Pfeiffer L N, West K W
James Franck Institute and Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Feb 6;92(5):056802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.056802. Epub 2004 Feb 4.
We report on the cascade of quantum phase transitions exhibited by tunnel-coupled edge states across a quantum Hall line junction. We identify a series of quantum critical points between successive strong and weak tunneling regimes in the zero-bias conductance. Scaling analysis shows that the conductance near the critical magnetic fields B(c) is a function of a single scaling argument /B-B(c)/T(-kappa), where the exponent kappa=0.42. This puzzling resemblance to a quantum Hall-insulator transition points to the importance of interedge correlation between the coupled edge states.