A PLASMA ANALOGY AND BERRY MATRICES FOR NON-ABELIAN QUANTUM HALL STATES

We present an approach to the computation of the nonabelian statistics of quasiholes in quantum Hall states, such as the Pfaffian state, who se wavefunctions are related to the conformal blocks of minimal model conformal field theories. We use the Coulomb gas construction of these conformal field theories to formulate a plasma analogy for the quantu m Hall states, A number of properties of the Pfaffian state follow imm ediately, including the Berry phases, which demonstrate the quasiholes ' fractional charge, the abelian statistics of the two-quasihole state , and equal-time ground state correlation functions. The non-abelian s tatistics of multi-quasihole states follows from an additional assumpt ion. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science E.V.