Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1106.2614 · Physical Review B

Majorana edge states in interacting two-chain ladders of fermions

Meng Cheng, Hong-Hao Tu

Published Sep 12, 2011• 103 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this work, we study interacting spinless fermions on a two-chain ladder with interchain pair tunneling while single-particle tunneling is suppressed at low energy. The model embodies a ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ symmetry associated with the fermion parity on each chain. We find that when the system is driven to the strong-coupling phase by the pair tunneling, Majorana excitations appear on the boundary. Such Majorana edge states correspond to two-fold degeneracy of ground states distinguished by different fermion parity on each chain, thus representing a generalization of one-dimensional topological superconductors. We also characterize the stability of the ground-state degeneracy against local perturbations. Lattice fermion models realizing such an effective field theory are discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.84.094503

Related papers

Flux-stabilized Majorana zero modes in coupled one-dimensional Fermi wires

Chun Chen, Wei Yan, C. S. Ting +2 more

One promising avenue to study one-dimensional (1D) topological phases is to realize them in synthetic materials such as cold atomic gases. Intriguingly, it is possible to realize Majorana boundary modes in a 1D number-conserving system consisting of two fermionic chains coupled only by pair-hopping processes [C. V. Kraus et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 173004 (2013)]. It is commonly believed that significant interchain single-particle tunneling necessarily destroys these Majorana modes, as it spoils the ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ fermion-parity symmetry that protects them. In this Rapid Communication, we present a mechanism to overcome this obstacle, by piercing a (synthetic) magnetic $\ensuremath{\pi}$ flux through each plaquette of the Fermi ladder. Using bosonization, we show that in this case there exists an exact leg-interchange symmetry that is robust to interchain hopping, and acts as fermion parity at long wavelengths. We utilize density matrix renormalization group and exact diagonalization to verify that the resulting model exhibits Majorana boundary modes up to large single-particle tunnelings, comparable to the intrachain hopping strength. Our work highlights the unusual impacts of different topologically trivial band structures on these interaction-driven topological phases, and identifies a distinct route to stabilizing Majorana boundary modes in 1D fermionic ladders.

arXiv:1701.01794•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Oct 8, 2018•19 citations

Poor man's parafermions in a lattice model with even multiplet pairing

Leonardo Mazza, Fernando Iemini, Marcello Dalmonte +1 more

We discuss a one-dimensional fermionic model with a generalized $\mathbb{Z}_{N}$ even multiplet pairing extending Kitaev $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ chain. The system shares many features with models believed to host localized edge parafermions, the most prominent being a similar bosonized Hamiltonian and a $\mathbb{Z}_{N}$ symmetry enforcing an $N$-fold degenerate ground state robust to certain disorder. Interestingly, we show that the system supports a pair of parafermions but they are non-local instead of being boundary operators. As a result, the degeneracy of the ground state is only partly topological and coexists with spontaneous symmetry breaking by a (two-particle) pairing field. Each symmetry-breaking sector is shown to possess a pair of Majorana edge modes encoding the topological twofold degeneracy.

•Jan 25, 2018•2 citations

Majorana zero modes in the interacting fermion chain without pairing

Andrei A. Zvyagin

The ground state behavior of the spinless fermion chain with an interaction between fermions at neighboring sites is studied for free open boundaries. For the strong enough repulsion boundary gapless states (bound state of Majorana operators from opposite sites of the chain) can exist inside the gap for bulk excitations, i.e., in the topological insulator regime. We propose to use those Majorana zero modes as topological qubits, similar to the ones in one-dimensional topological superconductors. Possible physical realizations of the considered model are discussed.

Low Temperature Physics•May 1, 2021•6 citations

Topological degeneracy and pairing in a one-dimensional gas of spinless fermions

Jonathan Ruhman, Ehud Altman

We revisit the low-energy physics of one-dimensional spinless fermion liquids, showing that with sufficiently strong interactions the conventional Luttinger liquid can give way to a strong-pairing phase. While the density fluctuations in both phases are described by a gapless Luttinger liquid, single fermion excitations are gapped only in the strong-pairing phase. Smooth spatial Interfaces between the two phases lead to topological degeneracies in the ground-state and low-energy spectrum of the density fluctuations. Using a concrete microscopic model, with both single-particle and pair hopping, we show that the strong-pairing state is established through emergence of a new low-energy fermionic mode. We characterize the two phases with numerical calculations using the density matrix renormalization group. In particular we find enhancement of the central charge from $c=1$ in the two Luttinger liquid phases to $c=3/2$ at the critical point, which gives direct evidence for an emergent critical Majorana mode. Finally, we confirm the existence of topological degeneracies in the low-energy phonon spectrum, associated with spatial interfaces between the two phases.

arXiv:1705.00635•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Aug 23, 2017•64 citations

Majorana edge modes in a spinful-particle conserving model

Franco T. Lisandrini, Corinna Kollath

We show the presence of Majorana edge modes in an interacting fermionic ladder with spin in a number-conserved setting. The interchain single-particle hopping is suppressed and only a pair hopping is present between the different chains of the ladder. Additionally, the hopping along the chains is spin imbalanced and a transverse magnetic field is applied breaking time-reversal invariance. We study the robustness of the topological phase with respect to an on-site interaction between the spin-up and spin-down fermions and the spin-dependent imbalance of the hopping. The main result of the present work is that the topological phase survives for a finite region in the parameter space in the presence of interactions. The localized Majorana edge modes seem to be more stable in the case when the on-site interaction is an attraction.

arXiv:2208.09346•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Dec 14, 2022•6 citations

Stability of Majorana Edge Zero Modes against Interactions

Tohru Koma

We study an interacting Majorana chain with an open boundary condition. In the case without interactions, the system shows a prototypical Majorana edge zero mode in the sector of the ground state with a spectral gap above the sector. We prove that both of the Majorana edge zero mode and the non-vanishing spectral gap are stable against generic weak interactions whose fermion parity is even. We also deal with the corresponding ladder systems, and discuss the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ index for the Majorana edge zero modes.

arXiv:2205.11222•May 23, 2022•4 citations
In this work, we study interacting spinless fermions on a two-chain ladder with interchain pair tunneling while single-particle tunneling is suppressed at low energy. The model embodies a Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ symmetry associated with the fermion parity on each chain. We find that when the system is driven to the strong-coupling phase by the pair tunneling, Majorana excitations appear on the boundary. Such Majorana edge states correspond to two-fold degeneracy of ground states distinguished by different fermion parity on each chain, thus representing a generalization of one-dimensional topological superconductors. We also characterize the stability of the ground-state degeneracy against local perturbations. Lattice fermion models realizing such an effective field theory are discussed.
One promising avenue to study one-dimensional (1D) topological phases is to realize them in synthetic materials such as cold atomic gases. Intriguingly, it is possible to realize Majorana boundary modes in a 1D number-conserving system consisting of two fermionic chains coupled only by pair-hopping processes [C. V. Kraus et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 173004 (2013)]. It is commonly believed that significant interchain single-particle tunneling necessarily destroys these Majorana modes, as it spoils the Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ fermion-parity symmetry that protects them. In this Rapid Communication, we present a mechanism to overcome this obstacle, by piercing a (synthetic) magnetic $\ensuremath{\pi}$ flux through each plaquette of the Fermi ladder. Using bosonization, we show that in this case there exists an exact leg-interchange symmetry that is robust to interchain hopping, and acts as fermion parity at long wavelengths. We utilize density matrix renormalization group and exact diagonalization to verify that the resulting model exhibits Majorana boundary modes up to large single-particle tunnelings, comparable to the intrachain hopping strength. Our work highlights the unusual impacts of different topologically trivial band structures on these interaction-driven topological phases, and identifies a distinct route to stabilizing Majorana boundary modes in 1D fermionic ladders.
We discuss a one-dimensional fermionic model with a generalized ZN\mathbb{Z}_{N}ZN​ even multiplet pairing extending Kitaev Z2\mathbb{Z}_{2}Z2​ chain. The system shares many features with models believed to host localized edge parafermions, the most prominent being a similar bosonized Hamiltonian and a ZN\mathbb{Z}_{N}ZN​ symmetry enforcing an NNN-fold degenerate ground state robust to certain disorder. Interestingly, we show that the system supports a pair of parafermions but they are non-local instead of being boundary operators. As a result, the degeneracy of the ground state is only partly topological and coexists with spontaneous symmetry breaking by a (two-particle) pairing field. Each symmetry-breaking sector is shown to possess a pair of Majorana edge modes encoding the topological twofold degeneracy.
The ground state behavior of the spinless fermion chain with an interaction between fermions at neighboring sites is studied for free open boundaries. For the strong enough repulsion boundary gapless states (bound state of Majorana operators from opposite sites of the chain) can exist inside the gap for bulk excitations, i.e., in the topological insulator regime. We propose to use those Majorana zero modes as topological qubits, similar to the ones in one-dimensional topological superconductors. Possible physical realizations of the considered model are discussed.
We revisit the low-energy physics of one-dimensional spinless fermion liquids, showing that with sufficiently strong interactions the conventional Luttinger liquid can give way to a strong-pairing phase. While the density fluctuations in both phases are described by a gapless Luttinger liquid, single fermion excitations are gapped only in the strong-pairing phase. Smooth spatial Interfaces between the two phases lead to topological degeneracies in the ground-state and low-energy spectrum of the density fluctuations. Using a concrete microscopic model, with both single-particle and pair hopping, we show that the strong-pairing state is established through emergence of a new low-energy fermionic mode. We characterize the two phases with numerical calculations using the density matrix renormalization group. In particular we find enhancement of the central charge from c=1c=1c=1 in the two Luttinger liquid phases to c=3/2c=3/2c=3/2 at the critical point, which gives direct evidence for an emergent critical Majorana mode. Finally, we confirm the existence of topological degeneracies in the low-energy phonon spectrum, associated with spatial interfaces between the two phases.
We show the presence of Majorana edge modes in an interacting fermionic ladder with spin in a number-conserved setting. The interchain single-particle hopping is suppressed and only a pair hopping is present between the different chains of the ladder. Additionally, the hopping along the chains is spin imbalanced and a transverse magnetic field is applied breaking time-reversal invariance. We study the robustness of the topological phase with respect to an on-site interaction between the spin-up and spin-down fermions and the spin-dependent imbalance of the hopping. The main result of the present work is that the topological phase survives for a finite region in the parameter space in the presence of interactions. The localized Majorana edge modes seem to be more stable in the case when the on-site interaction is an attraction.
We study an interacting Majorana chain with an open boundary condition. In the case without interactions, the system shows a prototypical Majorana edge zero mode in the sector of the ground state with a spectral gap above the sector. We prove that both of the Majorana edge zero mode and the non-vanishing spectral gap are stable against generic weak interactions whose fermion parity is even. We also deal with the corresponding ladder systems, and discuss the Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ index for the Majorana edge zero modes.