J. Phys. IV France 12 (2002) Pr9-261
DOI: 10.1051/jp4:20020410

Disordered quantum smectics

E. Orignac¹ and R. Chitra<sup>2

1</sup>  Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de l'École Normale Supérieure, UMR 8549 du CNRS, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris cedex 05, France
²  Laboratoire de Physique Théorique des Liquides, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, UMR 7600 du CNRS, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris cedex 05, France

Abstract
We study the effect of disorder on the properties of the Quantum Hall smectic state arising in two dimciisional electron systems in high Landau levels. We use the replica trick and the Gauzsian Variational method to treat the disorder. We find that the quantum smectics are rather different from the usual classical smectics in that the density correlations along the direction of the stripes manifest a Bragg-Glass type behaviour whereas those in the transverse direction are infra-red divergent. This results in an amsotropic behaviour of all physical quantities. We calculate the dynamical conductivity along the stripe direction and find a dependent pinning peak.

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