Anisotropy of hydrostatic stress for Hall droplets with in-plane magnetic field

We examine the hydrostatic stress of electrons strongly confined in a quasi-two-dimensional quantum well in the presence of a strong perpendicular and weak in-plane magnetic field. This introduces anisotropy into the stress tensor which is inconsistent with the notion of the quantum Hall droplet as a simple two-dimensional electron fluid. We show that the breaking of rotational symmetry is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for an anisotropic ground-state stress tensor and that the anisotropic stress originates primarily from quantum effects. We demonstrate this by decomposing the semiclassical trajectories of electrons in the system onto planes in phase space which must be rotated relative to the plane of the fluid to decouple the Hamiltonian.