Hund's rule for monopole harmonics, or why the composite fermion picture works

The success of the mean field composite Fermion (MFCF) picture in predictin g the fewest energy band of angular momentum multiplets in fractional quant um Hall systems cannot be found in a cancellation between the Coulomb and C hem-Simons interactions beyond the mean field due to their totally differen t energy scales. We show that the MFCF approximation can be regarded as a k ind of semi-empirical Hund's rule for monopole harmonics. The plausibility of the rule is easily established, but rigorous proof relies on comparison with detailed numerical calculations. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All ri ghts reserved.