Fractional quantum Hall states of a Bose gas with a spin-orbit coupling

We study the fractional quantum Hall phases of a pseudospin-1/2 Bose gas in an artificial gauge field. In addition to an external magnetic field, the gauge field mimics an intrinsic spin-orbit coupling of the Rashba type. While the spin degeneracy of the Landau levels is lifted by the spin-orbit coupling, the crossing of two Landau levels at certain coupling strengths gives rise to a new degeneracy. We therefore take into account two Landau levels and perform exact diagonalization of the many-body Hamiltonian. We study and characterize the quantum Hall phases which occur in the vicinity of the degeneracy point. Notably, we describe the different states appearing at the Laughlin fillings,nu = 1/2 and nu = 1/4. While for these filling factors incompressible phases disappear at the degeneracy point, we find gaps in the spectra of denser systems at nu = 3/2 and nu = 2. For filling factors nu = 2/3 and nu = 4/3, we discuss the connection of the exact ground states to the non-Abelian spin singlet states, obtained as the ground states of (k + 1)-body contact interactions.