Electron-vortex separation in quantum dots

We calculate the many-body wave function structure of a strongly correlated electron system in a quantum dot placed into a magnetic field. The exact numerical results show the formation of electron-vortex complexes in accordance with the composite fermion picture. We show that the electron-vortex distance is a universal function shared by various vortex shells and quantum dots containing different numbers of electrons. This distance is a quadratic function of the filling factor. In contrast, the approximate rotating-electron-molecule approach fails to capture this universality and predicts an electron-vortex distance linear in the filling factor.