Effect of Joule heating on current-induced asymmetries and breakdown of the quantum Hall effect in narrow Hall bars

Recent low-temperature scanning-force-microscopy experiments on narrow Hall bars, under the conditions of the integer quantum Hall effect (IQHE) and its breakdown, have revealed an interesting position dependence of the Hall potential, which changes drastically with the applied magnetic field and the strength of the imposed current through the sample. The present paper shows, that inclusion of Joule heating into an existing self-consistent theory of screening and magneto-transport, which assumes translation invariant Hall bars with a homogeneous background charge due to doping, can explain the experimental results on the breakdown of the IQHE in the so called edge-dominated regime.