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arXiv:1208.2532 · Physical Review Letters

Topological Superconductor to Anderson Localization Transition in One-Dimensional Incommensurate Lattices

Xiaoming Cai, Li-Jun Lang, Shu Chen, Yupeng Wang

Published Apr 26, 2013• 168 citations
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Abstract

We study the competition of disorder and superconductivity for a one-dimensional p-wave superconductor in incommensurate potentials. With the increase in the strength of the incommensurate potential, the system undergoes a transition from a topological superconducting phase to a topologically trivial localized phase. The phase boundary is determined both numerically and analytically from various aspects and the topological superconducting phase is characterized by the presence of Majorana edge fermions in the system with open boundary conditions. We also calculate the topological Z2 invariant of the bulk system and find it can be used to distinguish the different topological phases even for a disordered system.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.110.176403

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We study the competition of disorder and superconductivity for a one-dimensional p-wave superconductor in incommensurate potentials. With the increase in the strength of the incommensurate potential, the system undergoes a transition from a topological superconducting phase to a topologically trivial localized phase. The phase boundary is determined both numerically and analytically from various aspects and the topological superconducting phase is characterized by the presence of Majorana edge fermions in the system with open boundary conditions. We also calculate the topological Z2 invariant of the bulk system and find it can be used to distinguish the different topological phases even for a disordered system.
The effect of the incommensurate potential is studied for the one-dimensional p-wave superconductor. It is determined by analyzing various properties, such as the superconducting gap, the long-range order of the correlation function, the inverse participation ratio and the Z2 topological invariant, etc. In particular, two important aspects of the effect are investigated: (1) as disorder, the incommensurate potential destroys the superconductivity and drives the system into the Anderson localized phase; (2) as a quasi-periodic potential, the incommensurate potential causes band splitting and turns the system with certain chemical potential into the band insulator phase. A full phase diagram is also presented in the chemical potential-incommensurate potential strength plane.
We study the competition of disorder and superconductivity for a generalized Kitaev model in incommensurate potentials. The generalized Kitaev model describes one dimensional spinless fermions with long-range p-wave superconducting pairing, which decays with distance l as a power law ∼[Formula: see text]. We focus on the transition from the topological superconducting phase to the topologically trivial Anderson localized phase, and effects of the exponent α on this phase transition. In the topological superconducting phase, for a system under open boundary condition the amplitude of zero-mode Majorana fermion has a hybrid exponential-algebraic decay as the distance increases from the edge. In the Anderson localized phase, some single-particle states remain critical for very strong disorders and the number of critical states increases as α decreases. In addition, except for critical disorders, the correlation function always has an exponential decay at the short range and an algebraic decay at the long range. Phase transition points are also numerically determined and the topological phase transition happens earlier at a smaller disorder strength for a system with smaller α.
The topological phase transitions and localization properties in a 1D p-wave superconductor under Fibonacci quasi-periodic potential modulation are investigated in this work. By calculating the Z2 topological invariant, the topological phase diagram of the system is determined numerically. It is found that the system can transition from a topologically trivial phase to a topological Anderson superconductor phase through the Fibonacci quasi-periodic modulation. Moreover, under certain parameters, the system undergoes multiple topological Anderson superconductor phase transitions, accompanied by the emergence of zero-energy modes. However, in the case of strong disorder, the topological Anderson superconductor phase is destroyed, indicating that the topological Anderson superconductor phase can be induced only within a finite range of parameters. Furthermore, by calculating and analyzing the fractal dimension and the mean inverse participation ratio (MIPR) order parameter, the localization properties of the system are analyzed. The results show that regardless of how the disorder intensity increases, the fractal dimension values of most eigenstates always remain within a range of 0–1. Subsequently, the variations in the fractal dimensions of all eigenstates for different system sizes are studied. The results show that the fractal dimension values of most eigenstates are away from 0 and 1. These results indicate that the wavefunction in the bulk of the topological Anderson superconductor phase induced by Fibonacci quasi-periodic potential is a critical state wavefunction, with the system overall being in a critical phase. The stability of the critical phase is confirmed by scale behavior of MIPR as shown in figure. It differs from the traditional topological Anderson superconductor phase induced by random disorder or AA-type quasi-periodic disorder. The results provide new insights into and references for studying topological phase transitions and localization transitions in 1D p-wave superconductors.
Motivated by recent developments in the field of 1D topological superconductors (TSCs), we investigate the phase transition properties of p-wave superconductor with 50 sites. In this paper, we first map the p-wave fermion model into the transverse [Formula: see text] model with an incommensurate modulated transverse field. We study the phase transition from TSC phase to Anderson localization phase by using imaginary time-evolving block decimation (TEBD) algorithm. By calculating the correlation function [Formula: see text], we numerically calculate the average correlation function in different p-wave pairing amplitude [Formula: see text]. By plotting the average correlation function versus the strength of incommensurate [Formula: see text] for [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], we identify the phase transition from TSC phase to Anderson localization phase [X. M. Cai et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 176403 (2013)]. Last but not least, we give an average measure of the entanglement of a single site with the rest of the system and von Neumann entropy of two boundary sites for the same parameters showing that the system possesses very strong entanglement at the critical point. The finite size effect and Majorana fermions are discussed in this paper.
Using exact numerical methods, we study the interplay between p-wave superconductivity and off-diagonal modulation in the incommensurate off-diagonal Aubry-André model with p-wave pairing. When chemical potential is zero, the modulation not only leads to an Anderson-like localization with all bulk states changing into critical ones, but also induces a topological phase transition accompanying the disappearing of exponentially localized zero-energy edge Majorana fermions. These two transitions happen at different places and true Anderson localization is absent. With a finite chemical potential, the quasi-periodicity of the modulation causes band splitting and drives the system into a band insulator phase. It has a fixed incommensurate particle density which is determined by the modulation frequency. Phase diagrams are identified, and can be tested with existing proposals for experimental realizations of the effective off-diagonal disorder and the p-wave pairing.
We study the two-dimensional topological superconductors of spinless fermions in a checkerboard-lattice Chern-insulator model. With the short-range p-wave superconducting pairing, multifarious topological quantum phase transitions have been found and several phases with high Chern numbers have been observed. We have established a rich phase diagram for these topological superconducting states. A finite-size checkerboard-lattice cylinder with a harmonic trap potential has been further investigated. Based upon the self-consistent numerical calculations of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, various phase transitions have also been identified at different regions of the system. Multiple pairs of Majorana fermions are found to be well-separated and localized at the phase boundaries between the phases characterized by different Chern numbers.