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arXiv:1203.2983 · Physical Review B

Arbitrary dimensional Majorana dualities and architectures for topological matter

Zohar Nussinov, Gerardo Ortíz, Emilio Cobanera

Published Aug 7, 2012• 51 citations
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Abstract

Motivated by the prospect of attaining Majorana modes at the ends of nanowires, we analyze interacting Majorana systems on general networks and lattices in an arbitrary number of dimensions, and derive universal spin duals. We prove that these interacting Majorana systems, quantum Ising gauge theories, and transverse-field Ising models with annealed bimodal disorder are all dual to one another on general planar graphs. This leads to an interesting connection between heavily disordered annealed Ising systems and uniform Ising theories with nearest-neighbor interactions. As any Dirac fermion (including electronic) operator can be expressed as a linear combination of two Majorana fermion operators, our results further lead to dualities between interacting Dirac fermionic systems on rather general lattices and graphs and corresponding spin systems. Such general complex Majorana architectures (other than those of simple square or other crystalline arrangements) might be of empirical relevance. As these systems display low-dimensional symmetries, they are candidates for realizing topological quantum order. The spin duals allow us to predict the feasibility of various standard transitions as well as spin-glass-type behavior in interacting Majorana fermion or electronic systems. Several systems that can be simulated by arrays of Majorana wires are further introduced and investigated: (1) the XXZ honeycomb compass model (intermediate between the classical Ising model on the honeycomb lattice and Kitaev's honeycomb model), (2) a checkerboard lattice realization of the model of Xu and Moore for superconducting $(p+ip)$ arrays, and a (3) compass-type two-flavor Hubbard model with both pairing and hopping terms. By the use of our dualities (tantamount to high-dimensional fermionization), we show that all of these systems lie in the three-dimensional Ising universality class. We further discuss how the existence of topological orders and bounds on autocorrelation times can be inferred by the use of symmetries and also propose to engineer quantum simulators via such Majorana wire networks.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.86.085415

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Motivated by the prospect of attaining Majorana modes at the ends of nanowires, we analyze interacting Majorana systems on general networks and lattices in an arbitrary number of dimensions, and derive universal spin duals. We prove that these interacting Majorana systems, quantum Ising gauge theories, and transverse-field Ising models with annealed bimodal disorder are all dual to one another on general planar graphs. This leads to an interesting connection between heavily disordered annealed Ising systems and uniform Ising theories with nearest-neighbor interactions. As any Dirac fermion (including electronic) operator can be expressed as a linear combination of two Majorana fermion operators, our results further lead to dualities between interacting Dirac fermionic systems on rather general lattices and graphs and corresponding spin systems. Such general complex Majorana architectures (other than those of simple square or other crystalline arrangements) might be of empirical relevance. As these systems display low-dimensional symmetries, they are candidates for realizing topological quantum order. The spin duals allow us to predict the feasibility of various standard transitions as well as spin-glass-type behavior in interacting Majorana fermion or electronic systems. Several systems that can be simulated by arrays of Majorana wires are further introduced and investigated: (1) the XXZ honeycomb compass model (intermediate between the classical Ising model on the honeycomb lattice and Kitaev's honeycomb model), (2) a checkerboard lattice realization of the model of Xu and Moore for superconducting (p+ip)(p+ip)(p+ip) arrays, and a (3) compass-type two-flavor Hubbard model with both pairing and hopping terms. By the use of our dualities (tantamount to high-dimensional fermionization), we show that all of these systems lie in the three-dimensional Ising universality class. We further discuss how the existence of topological orders and bounds on autocorrelation times can be inferred by the use of symmetries and also propose to engineer quantum simulators via such Majorana wire networks.
We show that networks of superconducting topological nanowires can realize the physics of exactly solvable Kitaev spin models on trivalent lattices. This connection arises from the low-energy theory of both systems being described by a tight-binding model of Majorana modes. In Kitaev spin models the Majorana description provides a convenient representation to solve the model, whereas in an array of Josephson junctions of topological nanowires it arises from localized physical Majorana modes tunneling between the wire ends. We explicitly show that an array of junctions of three wires---a setup relevant to topological quantum computing with nanowires---can realize the Yao-Kivelson model, a variant of Kitaev spin models on a decorated honeycomb lattice. Employing properties of the latter, we show that the network can be constructed to give rise to two-dimensional collective topological states characterized by Chern numbers $\ensuremath{\nu}=0,\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1$, and $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2$, and that defects in the array can be associated with vortex-like quasiparticle excitations. In addition we show that the collective states are stable in the presence of disorder and superconducting phase fluctuations. When the network is operated as a quantum information processor, the connection to Kitaev spin models implies that decoherence mechanisms can in general be understood in terms of proliferation of the vortex-like quasiparticles.
Recent decades have seen a proliferation of unconventional quasiparticles in condensed matter systems. Majorana fermions, theoretically predicted in several setups and of great interest in topological quantum computation, are a focus of intense research efforts. Higher-spin moments, relevant for both solid-state compounds and cold atoms, are of great theoretical interest as they interpolate between the quantum and classical limits but sometimes show surprising behavior. In the meantime, successful fabrication and characterization of low-dimensional systems have brought new phenomenology and physical insights. In this dissertation I will theoretically explore a few low-dimensional models using Majorana fermions and higher-spin moments as building blocks. I will first discuss a generalized family of the celebrated Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, a zero-dimensional all-to-all Majorana model that exhibits non-Fermi liquid behavior and is holographically dual to a black hole. The generalized model has a phase transition between a non-Fermi liquid and a disordered Fermi liquid. Then I will discuss the Heisenberg model with higher spins, with a focus on chaos and information scrambling. Using matrix-product-state-based methods, we are able to obtain numerical results for spin up to 4 and characterize the Lyapunov growth. After that I will discuss a generalization of the Hubbard model to Majorana fermions on the honeycomb lattice. Unlike previous similar models, we find topological phases with (anti-)chiral edge modes for weak interaction. Finally I will show a construction of explicit supersymmetric Majorana model on the kagome lattice, where a family of exact solutions is found and the nature of supersymmetry breaking is explored.
It is well known that the noninteracting Majorana chain is dual to the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model, either through the Jordan–Wigner transformation or by gauging fermion parity. In this correspondence, the minimal translation of the Majorana chain maps to the celebrated Kramers–Wannier (KW) duality of the spin model, with the critical point mapped to the self-dual point. In this work, we generalize this mapping to two and higher dimensions by constructing a unitary equivalence between the parity-gauged fermionic system and a spin system defined on arbitrary polyhedral decompositions of space. Imposing the flatness condition on the gauge field yields a bosonization duality between the original (ungauged) fermionic system and a gauged spin system obeying a Gauss law. The dependence of the Gauss law in the spin system on the Kasteleyn orientation (and the discrete spin structure) of the fermionic system is made explicit. Applying this bosonization to one or two copies of Majorana fermions on translationally invariant lattices, we derive higher-dimensional analogs of KW (self-) dualities in spin systems arising from fermionic minimal translations. The KW (self-) dualities are non-invertible due to projections onto eigenspaces of higher-form symmetries in the associated symmetry operators. The bosonization framework we present is intuitive, general, and systematic, encompassing other known exact bosonization methods while offering a novel approach to establish new connections between fermionic and spin systems in arbitrary dimensions.
Three-dimensional Kitaev models -- generalizations of the well known exactly solvable Kitaev honeycomb model -- exhibit a rich variety of quantum spin liquid phases. Their fractionalized excitations are Majorana fermions that may form topological band structures. These can be enriched by lattice symmetries, as shown in the present work. In particular, the authors propose two new instances of Kitaev spin liquids that exhibit nodal chains and 3D Dirac nodes in the bulk. Such crystalline Kitaev spin liquids are direct generalizations of crystalline topological insulators, albeit in an interacting spin system. A potential material realization in metal-organic frameworks is also discussed.
The interplay among symmetry, topology and condensed matter systems has deepened our understandings of matter and lead to tremendous recent progresses in finding new topological phases of matter such as topological insulators, superconductors and semi-metals. Most examples of the aforementioned topological materials are free fermion systems, in this thesis, however, we focus on their strongly correlated counterparts where electron-electron interactions play a major role. With interactions, exotic topological phases and quantum critical points with fractionalized quantum degrees of freedom emerge. In the first part of this thesis, we study the problem of resonant tunneling through a quantum dot in a spinful Luttinger liquid. It provides the simplest example of a (0+1)d system with symmetry-protected phase transitions. We show that the problem is equivalent to a two channel SU(3) Kondo problem and can be mapped to a quantum Brownian motion model on a Kagome lattice. Utilizing boundary conformal field theory, we find the universal peak conductance and compute the scaling behavior of the resonance line-shape.\nFor the second part, we present a model of interacting Majorana fermions that describes a superconducting phase with a topological order characterized by the Fibonacci topological field theory. Our theory is based on a SO(7)1=SO(7)1/(G2)1 x (G2)1 coset construction and implemented by a solvable two-dimensional network model. In addition, we predict a closely related ''anti-Fibonacci'' phase, whose topological order is characterized by the tricritical Ising model. Finally, we propose an interferometer that generalizes the Z2 Majorana interferometer and directly probes the Fibonacci non-Abelian statistics.\nFor the third part, we argue that a correlated fluid of electrons and holes can exhibit fractional quantum Hall effects at zero magnetic field. We first show that a Chern insulator can be realized as a free fermion model with p-wave(m=1) excitonic pairing. Its ground state wavefunction is then worked out and generalized to m>1. We give several pieces of evidence that this conjectured wavefunction correctly describes a topological phase, dubbed ''fractional excitonic insulator'', within the same universality class as the corresponding Laughlin state at filling 1/m. We present physical arguments that gapless states with higher angular momentum pairing between energy bands are conducive to forming the fractional excitonic insulator in the presence of repulsive interactions. Without interactions, these gapless states appear at topological phase transitions which separate the trivial insulator from a Chern insulator with higher Chern number. Since the nonvanishing density of states at these higher angular momentum band inversion transitions can give rise to interesting many-body effects, we introduce a series of minimal lattice models realizations in two dimensions. We also study the effect of rotational symmetry broken electron-hole exciton condensation in our lattice models using mean field theory.
Majorana fermions are the real (in a mathematical sense) counterparts of complex fermions like ordinary electrons. The promise of topological quantum computing has lead to substantial experimental progress in realizing these particles in various synthetic platforms. The realization of Majorana fermions motivates a fundamental question: what phases of matter can emerge if many Majorana fermions are allowed to interact? Here we review recent progress in this direction on the proposed experimental setups, analytical and numerical results on low-dimensional lattice models, and the exactly solvable Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model. The early progress thus far suggests that strongly correlated phases of matter with Majorana building blocks can exhibit many novel phenomena, such as emergent spacetime supersymmetry, topological order and the physics of black-holes, in condensed matter systems. They may also provide alternative avenues for universal topological quantum computing through the realization of the Fibonacci phase and measurement-based only surface codes.