Electron - hole asymmetry and activation energy in quantum Hall ferromagnets

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We argue that the dissipative transport in ferromagnetic quantum Hall effect liquids at ν=2N+1 is dominated by the thermal activation of pairs consisting of an electron and an antiskyrmion (topological texture which represents a hole with 'screened' exchange interaction), thus manifesting the lack of electron-hole symmetry in quantum Hall ferromagnets. We find that the activation energy of such a pair is not the exchange energy, but is determined by the interplay between the excess Zeeman energy of a skyrmion and the charging energy of its topological texture: E=aε Z¹/³E C²/³ ¹/³(ᵢE C²/³ε Z¹/³), E C=e²χλ, with a≈ 1.75.