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arXiv:1104.1531 · Physical Review Letters

Probability Distribution of Majorana End-State Energies in Disordered Wires

Piet W. Brouwer, Mathias Duckheim, Alessandro Romito, Felix von Oppen

Published Nov 1, 2011• 187 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

One-dimensional topological superconductors harbor Majorana bound states at their ends. For superconducting wires of finite length L, these Majorana states combine into fermionic excitations with an energy ε(0) that is exponentially small in L. Weak disorder leaves the energy splitting exponentially small, but affects its typical value and causes large sample-to-sample fluctuations. We show that the probability distribution of ε(0) is log normal in the limit of large L, whereas the distribution of the lowest-lying bulk energy level ε(1) has an algebraic tail at small ε(1). Our findings have implications for the speed at which a topological quantum computer can be operated.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.107.196804

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One-dimensional topological superconductors harbor Majorana bound states at their ends. For superconducting wires of finite length L, these Majorana states combine into fermionic excitations with an energy ε(0) that is exponentially small in L. Weak disorder leaves the energy splitting exponentially small, but affects its typical value and causes large sample-to-sample fluctuations. We show that the probability distribution of ε(0) is log normal in the limit of large L, whereas the distribution of the lowest-lying bulk energy level ε(1) has an algebraic tail at small ε(1). Our findings have implications for the speed at which a topological quantum computer can be operated.
We study the decay and oscillations of Majorana fermion wave functions and ground-state (GS) fermion parity in one-dimensional topological superconducting lattice systems. Using a Majorana transfer matrix method, we find that Majorana wave-function properties are encoded in the associated Lyapunov exponent, which in turn is the sum of two independent components: a ``superconducting component,'' which characterizes the gap induced decay, and the ``normal component,'' which determines the oscillations and response to chemical potential configurations. The topological phase transition separating phases with and without Majorana end modes is seen to be a cancellation of these two components. We show that Majorana wave-function oscillations are completely determined by an underlying nonsuperconducting tight-binding model and are solely responsible for GS fermion parity switches in finite-sized systems. These observations enable us to analytically chart out wave-function oscillations, the resultant GS parity configuration as a function of parameter space in uniform wires, and special parity switch points where degenerate zero energy Majorana modes are restored in spite of finite size effects. For disordered wires, we find that band oscillations are completely washed out leading to a second localization length for the Majorana mode and the remnant oscillations are randomized as per Anderson localization physics in normal systems. Our transfer matrix method further allows us to (i) reproduce known results on the scaling of midgap Majorana states and demonstrate the origin of its log-normal distribution, (ii) identify contrasting behavior of disorder-dependent GS parity switches for the cases of even versus odd number of lattice sites, and (iii) chart out the GS parity configuration and associated parity switch points as a function of disorder strength.
Finite-length one-dimensional topological superconductor wires host localized Majorana zero modes at their ends. In realistic models, these appear only after a topological quantum critical point is crossed by external tuning of parameters. Thus, there is a universal finite-size scaling, governed by the critical point, that dictates the evolution of the energy of the Majorana modes near the transition. We first describe this scaling, then apply it in detail to an explicit synthetic topological superconductor model. Our work not only connects Ising quantum criticality with realistic nanowires in the presence of spin-orbit coupling, Zeeman splitting, and superconductivity, but also provides a viable experimental route for discerning the existence of the topological quantum critical point.
Superconducting wires with broken time-reversal and spin-rotational symmetries can exhibit two distinct topological gapped phases and host bound Majorana states at the phase boundaries. When the wire is tuned to the transition between these two phases and the gap is closed, Majorana states become delocalized leading to a peculiar critical state of the system. We study transport properties of this critical state as a function of the length LLL of a disordered multichannel wire. Applying a nonlinear supersymmetric sigma model of symmetry class D with two replicas, we identify the average conductance, its variance, and the third cumulant in the whole range of LLL from the Ohmic limit of short wires to the regime of a broad conductance distribution when LLL exceeds the correlation length of the system. In addition, we calculate the average thermal shot noise power and variance of the topological index for arbitrary LLL. The general approach developed in the paper can also be applied to study combined effects of disorder and topology in wires of other symmetries.
We discuss the effects of quantum and thermal fluctuations on the Majorana edge states in a topological atomic wire coupled to a superfluid molecular gas with gapless excitations. We find that the coupling between the Majorana edge states remains exponentially decaying with the length of the wire, even at finite temperatures smaller than the energy gap for bulk excitations in the wire. This exponential dependence is controlled solely by the localization length of the Majorana states. The fluctuations, on the other hand, provide the dominant contribution to the preexponential factor, which increases with temperature and the length of the wire. More important is that thermal fluctuations give rise to a decay of an initial correlation between Majorana edge states to its stationary value after some thermalization time. This stationary value is sensitive to the temperature and to the length of the wire, and, although vanishing in the thermodynamic limit, can still be feasible in a mesoscopic system at sufficiently low temperatures. The thermalization time, on the other hand, is found to be much larger than the typical time scales in the wire, and is sufficient for quantum operations with Majorana fermions before the temperature-induced decoherence sets in.
Among the broad spectrum of systems predicted to exhibit topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions, one-dimensional wires with strong spin-orbit coupling provide one of the most promising experimental candidates. Here we investigate the fate of the topological superconducting phase in such wires when repulsive interactions are present. Using a combination of density matrix renormalization group, bosonization, and Hartree--Fock techniques, we demonstrate that while interactions degrade the bulk gap---consistent with recent results of Gangadharaiah et al.---they also greatly expand the parameter range over which the topological phase arises. In particular, we show that with interactions this phase can be accessed over a broader chemical potential window, thereby leading to greater immunity against disorder-induced chemical potential fluctuations in the wire. We also suggest that in certain wires strong interactions may allow Majorana fermions to be generated without requiring a magnetic field.
We study the interplay between disorder and interaction in one-dimensional topological superconductors which carry localized Majorana zero-energy states. Using Abelian bosonization and the perturbative renormalization group approach, we obtain the renormalization group flow and the associated scaling dimensions of the parameters and identify the critical points of the low-energy theory. We predict a quantum phase transition from a topological superconducting phase to a nontopological localized phase, and obtain the phase boundary between these two phases as a function of the electron-electron interaction and the disorder strength in the nanowire. Based on an instanton analysis which incorporates the effect of disorder, we also identify a large regime of stability of the Majorana-carrying topological phase in the parameter space of the model.