Correlated electrons in narrow channels

We investigate the properties of a system of interacting electrons in a narrow channel in the quantum Hall effect regime. We find that an increase in the strength of the Coulomb interaction causes abrupt changes in the width of the charge-density profile of translationally invariant states. The resulting phase diagram includes many of the stable odd-denominator states and also a novel fractional quantum Hall state at lowest half-filled Landau level. The collective modes evaluated at and at reveal soft modes in between the translationally invariant states in the phase diagram. 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.