QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

The robustness of fractional quantum Hall states is measured as the energy gap separating the Laughlin ground-state from excitations. Using thermodynamic approximations for the correlation functions of the Laughlin state and the quasihole state, we evaluate the gap in a two-dimensional system of dipolar atoms exposed to an artificial gauge field. For Abelian fields, our results agree well with the results of exact diagonalization for small systems, but indicate that the large value of the gap predicted in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 070404 (2005)] was overestimated. However, we are able to show that the small gap found in the Abelian scenario is dramatically increased if we turn to non-Abelian fields squeezing the Landau levels.