Improved composite-boson theory of monolayer and bilayer quantum Hall ferromagnets

An improved composite-boson theory of quantum Hall ferromagnets is formulated both for the monolayer and bilayer systems. In this scheme the field operator describes solely the physical degrees of freedom representing the deviation from the ground state. Skyrmions are charged excitations confined to the lowest Landau level. By evaluating the excitation energy of one skyrmion in the interlayer-coherent phase it is shown that the bilayer QH state becomes stabler as the interlayer density difference becomes larger. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.