Fractional quantum Hall edge electrons and Berry's phase

It is shown that the deviation of a fractional quantum Hall edge fluid from power-law correlation functions with universal exponent alpha = 1/nu as observed in a recent experiment may be explained when studied in the framework of Berry's phase. At the edge, a nonlocal effect is induced in the construction of the electron creation operator in terms of the edge boson fields. This nonlocality is responsible for the deviation of the power-law exponent from alpha = 1/nu of the edge fluid. The nonlocal effect is incorporated through a length scale which is maximal at the lowest Landau level (LLL). The length scale decreases at the higher LLs and we have mixing of LLs. This will cause edge reconstruction and the existence of a striped phase at nu = 1 and 1/3 and will be robust at higher LLs. We have also shown that there are gapless edge excitations described by chiral boson fields and the number of branches of chiral boson fields can be related to the polarization states of electrons in the bulk.