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arXiv:1802.10522 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Universal two-time correlations, out-of-time-ordered correlators, and Leggett-Garg inequality violation by edge Majorana fermion qubits

Fernando J. Gómez-Ruiz, Juan José Mendoza-Arenas, Ferney J. Rodríguez, C. Tejedor, Luis Quiroga

Published Jun 20, 2018• 22 citations
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Abstract

In the present work we propose that two-time correlations of Majorana edge localized fermions constitute a novel and versatile toolbox for assessing the topological phases of one-dimensional open lattices. Using analytical and numerical calculations in the Kitaev model, we uncover universal relationships between the decay of the short-time correlations and a particular family of out-of-time-ordered correlators, which provide direct experimental alternatives to the quantitative analysis of the system regime, either normal or topological. Furthermore, we show that the saturation of two-time correlations possesses features of an order parameter. Finally, we find that violations of Leggett-Garg inequalities can indicate the topological-normal phase transition by looking at different qubits formed by pairing local and nonlocal edge Majorana fermions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.97.235134

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In the present work we propose that two-time correlations of Majorana edge localized fermions constitute a novel and versatile toolbox for assessing the topological phases of one-dimensional open lattices. Using analytical and numerical calculations in the Kitaev model, we uncover universal relationships between the decay of the short-time correlations and a particular family of out-of-time-ordered correlators, which provide direct experimental alternatives to the quantitative analysis of the system regime, either normal or topological. Furthermore, we show that the saturation of two-time correlations possesses features of an order parameter. Finally, we find that violations of Leggett-Garg inequalities can indicate the topological-normal phase transition by looking at different qubits formed by pairing local and nonlocal edge Majorana fermions.
We introduce a one-dimensional system of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice whose phase diagram includes topological states of different symmetry classes with a simple possibility to switch between them. The states and topological phase transitions between them can be identified by looking at their zero-energy edge modes which are Majorana fermions. We propose several universal methods of detecting the Majorana edge states, based on their genuine features: the zero-energy, localized character of the wave functions and the induced non-local fermionic correlations.
The topological properties of the Kitaev chain model with extended-range interactions are investigated, focusing on cases where the topological winding number is preserved. We assume that the pairing and hopping terms decay algebraically in space with exponents ααα and βββ, respectively. We show that in the truncated-range scenario, there are as many distinct topological phases as the number of coupled neighboring sites. In addition, an explicit analytical formulation is provided to evaluate the topological invariant and the phase transitions that emerge in these systems. Besides the analytical description, we introduce a new physical insight into the topological excitations of the ground-state by measuring the spatial distribution of the edge modes with the Majorana average position. Taking the next-nearest neighbor Kitaev chains as a probe, various numerical calculations of Majorana edge states were performed in finite-size clusters to determine the sensitivity of the topological zero energy modes to the parameters of interest. The occupation of edge-to-edge non-local fermion states is computed and defined as an effective parity. Such an effective parity exhibits new interesting features beyond the energetic exchange from the ground-state fermion parity switches, which are related to the distribution of the respective edge modes. Our calculations show a direct correlation between the ground-state fermion parity and the edge occupation numbers, which are translated into localization and delocalization of the Majorana average position.
In the present paper we introduce a way of identifying quantum phase transitions of many-body systems by means of local time correlations and Leggett-Garg inequalities. This procedure allows us to experimentally determine the quantum critical points not only of finite-order transitions but also those of infinite order, as the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition that is not always easy to detect with current methods. By means of simple analytical arguments for a general spin-1/21/21/2 Hamiltonian, and matrix product simulations of one-dimensional XXZXXZXXZ and anisotropic XYXYXY models, we argue that finite-order quantum phase transitions can be determined by singularities of the time correlations or their derivatives at criticality. The same features are exhibited by corresponding Leggett-Garg functions, which noticeably indicate violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities for early times and all the Hamiltonian parameters considered. In addition, we find that the infinite-order transition of the XXZXXZXXZ model at the isotropic point can be revealed by the maximal violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities. We thus show that quantum phase transitions can be identified by purely local measurements and that many-body systems constitute important candidates to observe experimentally the violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities.
The one-dimensional (1D) Kitaev model in the topological phase, with open boundary conditions, hosts Majorana zero modes. These are fermion parity-odd operators that almost commute with the Hamiltonian and manifest in long coherence times for edge degrees of freedom. We obtain higher-dimensional counterparts of such Majorana operators by explicitly computing their closed form expressions in models describing 2D and 3D higher-order superconductors. Due to the existence of such Majorana zero modes, the coherence time of the infinite temperature autocorrelation function of the corner Majorana operators in these models diverges with the linear system size. In the presence of a certain class of orbital-selective dissipative dynamics, the coherence times of half of the corner Majorana operators are enhanced, while the time correlations corresponding to the remaining corner Majoranas decay much faster as compared with the unitary case. We numerically demonstrate robustness of the coherence times to the presence of disorder.
We investigate the evolutions of edge Majorana fermions (MFs), and we show that they can be used to characterize different topological phases and study topological phase transitions. For some limiting cases of the evolution process for the Kitaev chain model and the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, we give analytical expressions of the survival probabilities (SPs) of the edge MFs. For a general case, we consider a dimerized Kitaev model as well as the Kitaev chain with disorder chemical potential, and we numerically calculate the SPs of two edge correlation MFs. Our results show that both of them are equal to zero, one of them is equal to zero at some times, or neither of them is equal to zero, which corresponds to the SSH-like topological, topological superconductor, and trivial phases, respectively.
Identifying entanglement-based order parameters characterizing topological systems, in particular topological superconductors and topological insulators, has remained a major challenge for the physics of quantum matter in the last two decades. Here we show that the end-to-end, long-distance, bipartite squashed entanglement between the edges of a many-body system, defined in terms of the edge-to-edge quantum conditional mutual information, is the natural nonlocal order parameter for topological superconductors in one dimension as well as in quasi-one-dimensional geometries. For the Kitaev chain in the entire topological phase, the edge squashed entanglement is quantized to ln(2)/2ln(2)/2ln(2)/2, half the maximal Bell-state entanglement, and vanishes in the trivial phase. Such a topological squashed entanglement exhibits the correct scaling at the quantum phase transition, is stable in the presence of interactions, and is robust against disorder and local perturbations. Edge quantum conditional mutual information and edge squashed entanglement defined with respect to different multipartitions discriminate topological superconductors from symmetry breaking magnets, as shown by comparing the fermionic Kitaev chain and the spin-1/2 Ising model in transverse field. For systems featuring multiple topological phases with different numbers of edge modes, like the quasi-1D Kitaev ladder, topological squashed entanglement counts the number of Majorana excitations and distinguishes the different topological phases of the system. In fact, we show that the edge quantum conditional mutual information and the edge squashed entanglement remain valid detectors of topological superconductivity even for systems, like the Kitaev tie with long-range hopping, featuring geometrical frustration and a suppressed bulk-edge correspondence.