Interacting Majorana chain : Transport properties and signatures of an emergent two-dimensional weak topological phase

Liu, Zhao and Bergholtz, Emil J. and Romito, Alessandro and Meidan, Dganit (2017) Interacting Majorana chain : Transport properties and signatures of an emergent two-dimensional weak topological phase. Physical review B, 96 (20): 205442. ISSN 1098-0121

[thumbnail of 1707.03176v1]
Preview
PDF (1707.03176v1)
1707.03176v1.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial.

Download (612kB)

Abstract

We study a one-dimensional (1D) chain of $2N$ Majorana bound states, which interact through a local quartic interaction. This model describes for example the edge physics of a quasi 1D stack of $2N$ Kitaev chains with modified time-reversal symmetry $T\gamma_iT^{-1}=\gamma_i$, which precludes the presence of quadratic coupling. The ground state of our 1D Majorana chain displays a four-fold periodicity in $N$, corresponding to the four distinct topological classes of the stacked Kitaev chains. We analyze the transport properties of the 1D Majorana chain, when probed by local conductors located at its ends. We find that for finite but large $N$, the scattering matrix partially reflects the four-fold periodicity, and the chain exhibits strikingly different transport properties for different chain lengths. In the thermodynamic limit, the 1D Majorana chain hosts a robust many-body zero mode, which indicates that the corresponding stacked two-dimensional bulk system realizes a weak topological phase.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Physical review B
Additional Information:
© 2017 American Physical Society
Subjects:
?? cond-mat.mes-hallcond-mat.str-el ??
ID Code:
89425
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
03 Jan 2018 11:34
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
31 Dec 2023 00:53