Multi-Component Quantum Hall Systems: The Sum of their Parts and More

The physics of the fractional quantum Hall effect is the physics of interacting electrons confined to a macroscopically degenerate Landau level. In this Chapter we discuss the theory of the quantum Hall effect in systems where the electrons have degrees of freedom in addition to the two-dimensional orbital degree of freedom. We will be primarily interested in the situation where a finite number of states, most-commonly two, are available for each orbital state within a degenerate Landau level and will refer to these systems as multi-component systems. Physical realizations of the additional degree of freedom include the electron spin, the valley index in multi-valley semiconductors, and the layer index in multiple-quantum-well systems. The consideration of multi-component systems expands the taxonomy of incompressible states and fractionally charged excitations, and for example, leads to the appearance of fractions with even denominators. More interestingly, it also leads us to new physics, including novel spontaneously broken symmetries and in some cases, finite temperature phase transitions. We present an introduction to this rich subject.