Parafermion Hall states from coset projections of abelian conformal theories

The Z_k-parafermion Hall state is an incompressible fluid of k-electron clusters generalizing the Pfaffian state of paired electrons. Extending our earlier analysis of the Pfaffian, we introduce two ``parent'' abelian Hall states which reduce to the parafermion state by projecting out some neutral degrees of freedom. The first abelian state is a generalized (331) state which describes clustering of k distinguishable electrons and reproduces the parafermion state upon symmetrization over the electron coordinates. This description yields simple expressions for the quasi-particle wave functions of the parafermion state. The second abelian state is realized by a conformal theory with a (2k-1)-dimensional chiral charge lattice and it reduces to the Z_k-parafermion state via the coset construction su(k)_1+su(k)_1/su(k)_2. The detailed study of this construction provides us a complete account of the excitations of the parafermion Hall state, including the field identifications, the Z_k symmetry and the partition function.