Quasiparticle agglomerates and environmental effects in the fractional quantum Hall edge states at ? = 5/2

We discuss how the presence of environmental effects and quasiparticle agglomerates could better reconcile the edge states theories with the experimental observations for the case of ? = 5/2. The Pfaffian and the anti-Pfaffian models will be compared in connection with experimental results identifying the latter as the best candidate. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.