Quantum melting a Wigner crystal into Hall liquids

Abstract: Recent experiments have shown that, counterintuitively, applying a magnetic field to a Wigner crystal can induce quantum Hall effects. In this work, using variational Monte Carlo, we show that magnetic fields can melt zero-field Wigner crystals into integer quantum Hall liquids. This melting originates from quantum oscillations in the liquid's ground state energy, which develops downward cusps at integer filling factors due to incompressibility. Our calculations establish a range of densities in which this quantum melting transition occurs.