  Wen's chiral Tomonaga-Luttinger model for the edge of an m-layer quantum Hall
system of total filling factor nu=m/(pm +- 1) with even p, is derived as a
random-phase approximation of the Chern-Simons theory for these states. The
theory allows for a description of edges both in and out of equilibrium,
including their collective excitation spectrum and the tunneling exponent into
the edge. While the tunneling exponent is insensitive to the details of a
nu=m/(pm + 1) edge, it tends to decrease when a nu=m/(pm - 1) edge is taken out
of equilibrium. The applicability of the theory to fractional quantum Hall
states in a single layer is discussed.
