Hall plateau quantization due to hopping caused by electron-phonon interaction

We perform model calculations showing that electron-phonon interaction in the presence of a static substrate potential generates a hopping contribution to the Hall current which increases the width of the quantized Hall plateaus. This can explain why in typical quantum Hall systems the plateaus of sigma(xy) are slightly larger than those of the dissipative conductivity. Further, we show that in special situations even the entire width of the Hall plateau is due to this phonon induced hopping current. These results also show that absence of dissipation is not indispensable for the quantization of sigma(xy).