A Chern-Simons effective field theory for the Pfaffian quantum Hall state Original Research Article

We present a low-energy effective field theory describing the universality class of the Pfaffian quantum Hall state. To arrive at this theory, we observe that the edge theory of the Pfaffian state of bosons at v = 1 is an SU(2)2 Kac-Moody algebra. It follows that the corresponding bulk effective field theory is an SU(2) Chem-Simons theory with coupling constant k = 2. The effective field theories for other Pfaffian states, such as the fermionic one at v = 1/2 are obtained by a flux-attachment procedure. We discuss the non-Abelian statistics of quasiparticles in the context of this effective field theory.