Observing Majorana bound states in p-wave superconductors using noise measurements in tunneling experiments

The zero-energy bound states at the edges or vortex cores of chiral p-wave superconductors should behave like Majorana fermions. We introduce a model Hamiltonian that describes the tunneling process when electrons are injected into such states. Using a nonequilibrium Green function formalism, we find exact analytic expressions for the tunneling current and noise and identify experimental signatures of the Majorana nature of the bound states to be found in the shot noise. We discuss the results in the context of different candidate materials that support triplet superconductivity. Experimental verification of the Majorana character of midgap states would have important implications for the prospects of topological quantum computation.     

双量子点结构中Majorana费米子的噪声特性

Majorana费米子是其自身的反粒子, 在拓扑量子计算中有着重要的应用. 利用粒子数表象下的量子主方程方法, 研究双量子点与Majorana费米子混合结构的电子输运特性, 特别是散粒噪声. 有无Majorana费米子耦合的电流与散粒噪声存在明显差别: 有Majorana费米子耦合时稳态电流差呈反对称, 噪声谱呈现相干振荡并且低频噪声显著增强. 量子点与Majorana费米子对称弱耦合时, 零频噪声由"峰"变为"谷", 并且"边谷"展宽逐渐减小; 当对称强耦合时, 零频噪声的谷深增加, "边谷"向高频端移动. 改变系统与电极的耦合强度时, 零频噪声由谷变成峰. 因此, 稳态电流结合散粒噪声可以探测双量子点结构中Majorana费米子是否存在.     

Majorana fermion modulated nonequilibrium transport through double quantum dots

Nonequilibrium electronic transports through a double-QD-Majorana coupling system are studied with a purpose to extract the information to identify Majorana bound states (MBSs). It is found that MBSs can help form various transport processes, including the nonlocal crossed Andreev reflection, local resonant Andreev reflection, and cotunneling, depending on the relative position of two dot levels. These processes enrich the signature of average currents and noise correlations to probe the nature of MBSs. We further demonstrate the switching between the current peaks of crossed Andreev reflection and cotunneling, which is closely related to the nonlocal nature of Majorana fermions. We also propose effective physical pictures to understand these Majorana-assisted transports.     

Signatures for Majorana neutrinos at hadron colliders

The Majorana nature of neutrinos may only be experimentally verified via lepton-number violating processes involving charged leptons. We explore the Delta L = 2 like-sign dilepton production at hadron colliders to search for signals of Majorana neutrinos. We find significant sensitivity for resonant production of a Majorana neutrino in the mass range of 10-80 GeV at the current run of the Tevatron with 2 fb(-1) integrated luminosity and in the range of 10-400 GeV at the CERN LHC with 100 fb(-1).     

Majorana零模式的电导与低压振荡散粒噪声

Majorana零能量模式是自身的反粒子,在拓扑量子计算中有重要应用.本文研究量子点与拓扑超导纳米线混合结构,通过量子点的输运电荷检测Majorana零模式.利用量子主方程方法,发现有无Majorana零模式的电流与散粒噪声存在明显差别.零模式导致稳态电流差呈反对称,在零偏压处显示反常电导峰.电流差随零模式分裂能的增大而减小,随量子点与零模式耦合的增强而增大.另一方面,零模式导致低压散粒噪声相干振荡,零频噪声显著增强.分裂能导致相干振荡愈加明显且零频噪声减小,而量子点与零模式的耦合使零频噪声增强.当量子点与电极非对称耦合时,零模式使电子由反聚束到聚束输运,亚泊松噪声增强为超泊松噪声.稳态电流差结合低压振荡的散粒噪声能够揭示Majorana零模式是否存在.     

Fractional Josephson current through a Luttinger liquid with topological excitations

Recently, the Majorana fermion has received great attentions due to its promising application in the fault-tolerant quantum computation. This application requires more accessible methods to detect the motion and braiding of the Majorana fermions. We use a Luttinger liquid ring to achieve this goal, where the ring geometry is nontrivial in the sense that it leads to fermion-parity-dependent topological excitations. First, we briefly review the essential physics of the Luttinger liquid and the Majorana fermion, in order to give an introduction of the general framework used in the following main work. Then, we theoretically investigated the DC Josephson effect between two topological superconductors via a Luttinger liquid ring. A low-energy effective Hamiltonian is derived to show the existence of the fractional Josephson current. Also, we find that the amplitude of the Josephson current, which is determined by the correlation function of Luttinger liquid, exhibits different behaviors in terms of the parity of Luttinger liquid due to the topological excitations. Our results suggest a possible method to detect the Majorana fermions and their tunneling process.     

Spin and Majorana polarization in topological superconducting wires

We study a one-dimensional wire with strong Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling (SOC), which supports Majorana fermions when subject to a Zeeman magnetic field and in the proximity of a superconductor. Using both analytical and numerical techniques we calculate the electronic spin texture of the Majorana end states. We find that the spin polarization of these states depends on the relative magnitude of the Rashba and Dresselhaus SOC components. Moreover, we define and calculate a local "Majorana polarization" and "Majorana density" and argue that they can be used as order parameters to characterize the topological transition between the trivial system and the system exhibiting Majorana bound modes. We find that the local Majorana polarization is correlated to the transverse spin polarization, and we propose to test the presence of Majorana fermions in a 1D system by a spin-polarized density of states measurement.     

Majorana fermion realization and relevant transport processes in a triple-quantum dot system

Nonequilibrium electronic transports through a system hosting three quantum dots hybridized with superconductors are investigated. By tuning the relative positions of the dot levels, we illustrate the existence of Majorana fermions and show that the Majorana feimions will either survive separately on single dots or distribute themselves among different dots with tunable probabilities. As a result, different physical mechanisms appear, including local Andreev reflection(LAR),cross Andreev reflection(CAR), and cross resonant tunneling(CRT). The resulting characteristics may be used to reveal the unique properties of Majorana fermions. In addition, we discuss the spin-polarized transports and find a pure spin current and a spin filter effect due to the joint effect of CRT and CAR, which is important for designing spintronic devices.     

Cross correlation mediated by distant Majorana zero modes with no overlap

Existing studies via shot noise calculation conclude that the cross correlation between the currents in the two leads connected by a pair of Majorana zero modes(MZMs)vanishes when their coupling energy??∈_M→0.Motivated by the intrinsic nature of nonlocality of the MZMs,we revisit this important problem and propose an experimental scheme to demonstrate the nonvanishing cross correlation even at the limit??∈_M→0.The proposed scheme employs the Andreevprocess-associated branch circuit currents,which are theoretically obtained by applying a decomposition analysis for the total currents while are accessible directly in practical measurement.For different bias voltage setup,we find intriguing results of both negative and positive correlations and carry out simple physical understanding using a quantum jump technique.Importantly,combining together with the evidence of the zero-bias-peak of conductance,the nonlocal cross correlation predicted in this work can help to confirm the existence of the nonlocal MZMs.     

Probing the Majorana nature of TeV-scale radiative seesaw models at collider experiments

A general feature of TeV-scale radiative seesaw models, in which tiny neutrino masses are generated via loop corrections, is an extended scalar (Higgs) sector. Another feature is the Majorana nature; e.g., introducing right-handed neutrinos with TeV-scale Majorana masses under the discrete symmetry, or otherwise introducing some lepton number violating interactions in the scalar sector. We study phenomenological aspects of these models at collider experiments. We find that, while properties of the extended Higgs sector of these models can be explored to some extent, the Majorana nature of the models can also be tested directly at the International Linear Collider via the electron–positron and electron–electron collision experiments.     

Charge Transport Properties of the Majorana Zero Mode Induced Noncollinear Spin Selective Andreev Reflection

We study the charge transport properties of the spin-selective Andreev reflection(SSAR)effect between a spin polarized scanning tunneling microscope(STM)tip and a Majorana zero mode(MZM).Considering both the MZM and the excited states,we calculate the conductance and the shot noise power of the noncollinear SSAR using scattering theory.We find that the excited states give rise to inside peaks.Moreover,we numerically calculate the shot noise power and the Fano factor of the SSAR effect.Our calculation shows that the shot noise power and the Fano factor are related to the angle between the spin polarization direction of the STM tip and that of the MZM,which provide additional characteristics to detect the MZM via SSAR.     

Majorana neutrinos and same-sign dilepton production at LHC and in rare meson decays

We discuss same-sign dilepton production mediated by Majorana neutrinos in high-energy proton–proton collisions for at the LHC energy TeV, and in the rare decays of the , and B mesons of the type . For the pp reaction, assuming one heavy Majorana neutrino of mass , we present discovery limits in the plane where are the mixing parameters. Taking into account the present limits from low-energy experiments, we show that at LHC one has sensitivity to heavy Majorana neutrinos up to a mass TeV in the dilepton channels , and , but the dilepton states will not be detectable due to the already existing constraints from neutrinoless double beta decay. We work out a large number of rare meson decays, both for the light and heavy Majorana neutrino scenarios, and argue that the present experimental bounds on the branching ratios are too weak to set reasonable limits on the effective Majorana masses. Received: 24 April 2001 / Published online: 29 June 2001     

Effect of dephasing on the current statistics of mesoscopic devices

We investigate the effects of dephasing on the current statistics of mesoscopic conductors with a recently developed statistical model, focusing, in particular, on mesoscopic cavities and Aharonov-Bohm rings. For such devices, we analyze the influence of an arbitrary degree of decoherence on the cumulants of the current. We recover known results for the limiting cases of fully coherent and totally incoherent transport and are able to obtain detailed information on the intermediate regime of partial coherence for a varying number of open channels. We show that dephasing affects the average current, shot noise, and higher order cumulants in a quantitatively and qualitatively similar way, and that consequently shot noise or higher order cumulants of the current do not provide information on decoherence additional or complementary to what can be already obtained from the average current.     

双带紧束缚模型中噪声对超晶格中电子输运性质的影响

运用直交流电场驱动下的双带紧束缚模型,研究了噪声对超晶格中电子输运性质的影响.数值结果表明,外部噪声能够破坏瞬时电流的周期性并且能够削减长时平均电流的峰值.随着噪声强度的增加,平均电流峰的高度降低,宽度增加;当增大噪声的衰减常数时,平均电流峰会有类似上述变化.     

Fractionalization noise in edge channels of integer quantum Hall states

A theoretical calculation is presented of current noise which is due charge fractionalization, in two interacting edge channels in the integer quantum Hall state at filling factor ν=2. Because of the capacitive coupling between the channels, a tunneling event, in which an electron is transferred from a biased source lead to one of the two channels, generates propagating plasma mode excitations which carry fractional charges on the other edge channel. When these excitations impinge on a quantum point contact, they induce low-frequency current fluctuations with no net average current. A perturbative treatment in the weak tunneling regime yields analytical integral expressions for the noise as a function of the bias on the source. Asymptotic expressions of the noise in the limits of high and low bias are found.     

Leptogenesis from first principles in the resonant regime

The lepton asymmetry generated by the out-of-equilibrium decays of heavy Majorana neutrinos with a quasi-degenerate mass spectrum is resonantly enhanced. In this work, we study this scenario within a first-principle approach. The quantum field theoretical treatment is applicable for mass splittings of the order of the width of the Majorana neutrinos, for which the enhancement is maximally large. The non-equilibrium evolution of the mixing Majorana neutrino fields is described by a formal analytical solution of the Kadanoff–Baym equations, that is obtained by neglecting the back-reaction. Based on this solution, we derive approximate analytical expressions for the generated asymmetry and compare them to the Boltzmann result. We find that the resonant enhancement obtained from the Kadanoff–Baym approach is smaller compared to the Boltzmann approach, due to additional contributions that describe coherent transitions between the Majorana neutrino species. We also discuss corrections to the masses and widths of the degenerate pair of Majorana neutrinos that are relevant for very small mass splitting, and compare the approximate analytical result for the lepton asymmetry with numerical results.     

Nonequilibrium Josephson effect through helical edge states

We study Josephson junctions between superconductors connected through the helical edge states of a two-dimensional topological insulator in the presence of a magnetic barrier. As the equilibrium Andreev bound states of the junction are 4π periodic in the superconducting phase difference, it was speculated that, at finite dc bias voltage, the junction exhibits a fractional Josephson effect with half the Josephson frequency. Using the scattering matrix formalism, we show that his effect is absent in the average current. However, clear signatures can be seen in the finite-frequency current noise. Furthermore, we discuss other manifestations of the Majorana bound states forming at the edges of the superconductors.     

Current correlations in quantum spin Hall insulators

We consider a four-terminal setup of a two-dimensional topological insulator (quantum spin Hall insulator) with local tunneling between the upper and lower edges. The edge modes are modeled as helical Luttinger liquids and the electron-electron interactions are taken into account exactly. Using perturbation theory in the tunneling, we derive the cumulant generating function for the interedge current. We show that different possible transport channels give rise to different signatures in the current noise and current cross correlations, which could be exploited in experiments to elucidate the interplay between electron-electron interactions and the helical nature of the edge states.     

Hole-doped semiconductor nanowire on top of an s-wave superconductor: a new and experimentally accessible system for Majorana fermions

Majorana fermions were envisioned by Majorana in 1935 to describe neutrinos. Recently, it has been shown that they can be realized even in a class of electron-doped semiconductors, on which ordinary s-wave superconductivity is proximity induced, provided the time reversal symmetry is broken by an external Zeeman field above a threshold. Here we show that in a hole-doped semiconductor nanowire the threshold Zeeman field for Majorana fermions can be very small for some magic values of the hole density. In contrast to the electron-doped systems, smaller Zeeman fields and much stronger spin-orbit coupling and effective mass of holes allow the hole-doped systems to support Majorana fermions in a parameter regime which is routinely realized in current experiments.     

Effective potential for emergent Majorana fermions in superconductor systems

Majorana fermions cannot be found in nature as a free fundamental particle. Nevertheless, in condensed matter systems, they can emerge as a collective excitation. In this work, using functional integration techniques, we calculated the effective potential for emergent Majorana fermions in the Kitaev chain. In this case, we have shown the behavior of the superconductor parameter as a function of temperature. Furthermore, we considered surface-induced superconductivity in a Topological Insulator and calculated the effective potential for emergent Majorana fermions in this system. In the case of an s-wave superconductor, we obtained a gap equation equivalent to that one appearing in a quasi-two-dimensional Dirac electronic system, a candidate to explain high-Tc superconductivity. Finally, for the p-wave superconductor, we have obtained a critical value of the electron-electron interaction in the surface of the Topological Insulator, determining the existence or not of induced superconductivity, a remarkable result to guide experiments.