EDGE ELECTROSTATICS OF A MESA-ETCHED SAMPLE AND EDGE-STATE-TO-BULK SCATTERING RATE IN THE FRACTIONAL QUANTUM HALL REGIME

To study the effects of Coulomb interactions on the properties of fractional quantum Hall edge states, we introduce a realistic model of a two-dimensional electron gas at a mesa-etched sample edge and solve it within electrostatic and Hartree-Fock approximations. We discuss the physics of the fractional quantum Hall strips separating the conducting edge channels and ways of estimating the widths of these strips. We relate our results to the measurements of nonlocal resistance by estimating the quasiparticle scattering rate and the corresponding equilibration length between the edge states and the conducting bulk.