The origin of the stripes observed in scanning single-electron transistor and in mesoscopic transport measurements of quantum Hall samples

We analyze two seemingly unrelated types of experiments on quantum Hall samples. When the measured quantities (local compressibility and resistances) are plotted as a function of magnetic field($B$) and electron density($n_e$), both experiments exhibit stripes parallel to lines of integer filling factors on the $B$-$n_e$ plane. Unlike the popular belief in Coulomb blockade physics, we explain this within the framework of non-interacting electron theory. Our numerical simulations and theoretical analysis demonstrate that new electronic states appear predominantly at the center of Landau levels, when the magnetic field increases. This leads to a certain ``spectral ordering" of the localized states that is sufficient to explain the main features observed in the experiments.