Composite Fermi liquids in the lowest Landau level

A quantum vortex liquid theory for composite Fermi liquid (CFL) states in the lowest Landau level is proposed. Contrary to the traditional Halperin-Lee-Read approach, the composite fermions in this formulation are vortices carrying no physical charge. Furthermore, a Berry phase φB=-2π00exν is enclosed by the composite Fermi surface, where ν is the total filling fraction. This vortex liquid theory is closely related to Read's formulation of bosonic CFL at ν=1 in the 1990's, and to Son's recent formulation of the half-filled Landau level in terms of Dirac composite fermions. Various consequences of this new picture are studied, including some nontrivial predictions for transport properties, and an emergent particle-hole symmetry for bosons at ν=1.