Excitation spectrum and effective mass of the even-fraction quantum Hall liquid

To probe the nature of the even-fraction quantum Hall system, we have investigated the low-lying excitation spectrum by means of exact diagonalization for finite systems. We have found (i) a striking one-to-one correspondence (i.e., a shell structure) between the spectrum and those for free (composite) fermions, (ii) a surprisingly straight scaling plot for the excitation energy that gives a zero gap (metal) in the thermodynamic limit, (iii) the effective mass evaluated from the scaling becoming heavier for filling factor = 1/2, 1/4, 1/6, but (iv) some deviations from the single-mode or the Hartree-Fock composite fermion approximation as well.