Semiconducting nanowires in proximity to superconductors are among promising candidates to search for Majorana fermions and topologically protected degeneracies, which may ultimately be used as building blocks for topological quantum computers. The prediction of neutral Majorana fermions in the proximity-induced superconducting systems ignores number conservation and thus leaves open the conceptual question of how a topological degeneracy that is robust to all local perturbations arises in a number-conserving system. In this work, we study how local attractive interactions generate a topological ground-state near-degeneracy in a quasi-one-dimensional superfluid using bosonization of the fermions. The local attractive interactions opens a topological quasiparticle gap in the odd channel wires (with more than one channel) with end Majorana modes associated with a topological near-degeneracy. We explicitly study the robustness of the topological degeneracy to local perturbations and find that such local perturbations result in quantum phase slips, which split of the topological degeneracy by an amount that does not decrease exponentially with the length of the wire, but still decreases rapidly if the number of channels is large. Therefore a bulk superconductor with a large number of channels is crucial for true topological degeneracy.
Semiconducting nanowires in proximity to superconductors are among promising candidates to search for Majorana fermions and topologically protected degeneracies, which may ultimately be used as building blocks for topological quantum computers. The prediction of neutral Majorana fermions in the proximity-induced superconducting systems ignores number conservation and thus leaves open the conceptual question of how a topological degeneracy that is robust to all local perturbations arises in a number-conserving system. In this work, we study how local attractive interactions generate a topological ground-state near-degeneracy in a quasi-one-dimensional superfluid using bosonization of the fermions. The local attractive interactions opens a topological quasiparticle gap in the odd channel wires (with more than one channel) with end Majorana modes associated with a topological near-degeneracy. We explicitly study the robustness of the topological degeneracy to local perturbations and find that such local perturbations result in quantum phase slips, which split of the topological degeneracy by an amount that does not decrease exponentially with the length of the wire, but still decreases rapidly if the number of channels is large. Therefore a bulk superconductor with a large number of channels is crucial for true topological degeneracy.
The realization and manipulation of topological Majorana zero modes (MZMs) have been pivotal in both theoretical and experimental research. In this paper, we present a symmetry enhanced topological model that supports stable, localized MZMs in a one-dimensional interacting fermionic system. The MZMs in our model, induced by particle-number conserving interactions, are fully decoupled from the chain's interior and remain degenerate regardless of chain length, allowing for simulations in extremely short fermionic chains. The topological phase transition is driven by changes in coupling parameters, transitioning to a trivial phase without affecting the MZMs' independence or degeneracy, only their topological protection. Additionally, local symmetries in the model enhance MZMs' stability and reveal unique odd-even effects across different chain lengths.
One-dimensional topological superconductors treated at the mean-field level host zero-energy edge Majorana modes, which encode topological degeneracy of their ground states. Geometric manipulations (braiding) of multiple wires can be used to induce topologically robust transformations within the ground state subspace. The mean-field ground states do not have a definite number of particles and thus cannot describe an isolated system. Projecting such states onto fixed particle number gives a very good approximation to the true ground state of an isolated superconductor. In previous work, we showed that so projecting the prototypical Kitaev wave function of a single wire retains key features of the mean-field description, such as the zero-energy single-particle spectral peaks near the wire edges. Here we consider the case of multiple wires with conserved total charge. Again, using the projected Kitaev wave functions as the template, we identify the many-body counterparts of the mean-field topologically degenerate ground states. We then demonstrate how the quantum gates equivalent to braiding of Majorana zero modes can be implemented, albeit with reduced protection from noise and disorder.
We show that a one dimensional ultra-cold Fermi gas with Rashba-like spin orbit coupling, a Zeeman field and intrinsic attractive interactions exhibits a novel topological superfluid state, which forms in spite of total number conservation and the absence of a single particle gap. Majorana zero modes are localized to the interface between a topological region in the middle of the trap and trivial regions at its wings. Unlike the realization of a topological superconductor in proximity coupled nano-wires, the Majorana modes do not carry a quantum number associated with the total fermion parity. Instead, the topological degeneracy is protected by an emergent Z2 symmetry present only at low energies. We discuss the experimental implications of the novel zero modes, as manifest for example in the response to modulation of a local potential near the position of the Majorana bound states. For the range of interaction strength corresponding to Luttinger parameter 12, on the other hand the zero-mode can be detected as a sharp low frequency response at an energy which generically scales with system size as 1/LK/2 and is therefore parametrically separated from the phonons.
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.
Topological superconductors are believed to host exotic quasiparticle excitations known as Majorana zero modes (MZMs), with much of the evidence based on BCS mean-field theory. The direct application of mean-field arguments is tenuous in finite, isolated systems relevant in some experiments. Here, we develop a new correlation-based method for identifying MZMs in interacting, number-conserving systems. Using the density matrix renormalization group, we study fermion number-conserving models with long-range interactions, which under periodic boundary conditions exhibit robust topological and nontopological superconductivity, tuned by the strength of interaction [Ortiz et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 267002 (2014)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.113.267002]. We find evidence that, on the topological side, Majorana edge modes appear in open chains, manifesting as the vanishing of the energy splitting between odd- and even-parity ground states with increasing system size. Additionally, off-diagonal two-point correlation functions show nonlocal, parity-dependent edge effects. These correlations reveal the spatial structure of Majorana modes in the many-body wave function. We show that the correlation diagnostic applies broadly, including to short-range interacting models, where topological superconductivity is more fragile due to the absence of a bulk excitation gap.
Majorana zero modes are the hallmark of topological superconductivity. In one-dimensional systems, these zero modes are usually introduced in the context of gapped, mean-field models that do not conserve particle number, such as the Kitaev chain. By non-locally encoding a conventional fermion across spatially separated Majorana zero modes, these systems become inherently immune to local decoherence. In this work, we show that signatures of Majorana edge physics persist in a number-conserving, gapless Luttinger liquid of spinless fermions with short-range attractive interactions. We identify the two-point correlator as a sharp diagnostic, revealing an edge-to-edge revival whose sign depends on the fermion-number parity. This revival is robust in the thermodynamic limit, and persists in the excited states of the system and at different fillings. A simple particle-hole ansatz for the ground state of the system with an odd number of fermions captures the physics of the system for a wide range of interaction strengths, interpolating between the free-fermion limit and the strongly interacting Majorana regime. Finally, we propose a concrete protocol to realize this model with ultracold dipolar molecules or atoms in an optical lattice, and to detect the revival via beam-splitter interferometry, opening an experimental route to Majorana physics beyond the conventional gapped-superconductor paradigm.