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arXiv:1905.12743 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Disorder and interaction in chiral chains: Majoranas versus complex fermions

Jonas F. Karcher, Michael Sonner, A. D. Mirlin

Published Oct 24, 2019• 20 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the low-energy physics of a chain of Majorana fermions in the presence of interaction and disorder, emphasizing the difference between Majoranas and conventional (complex) fermions. While in the noninteracting limit both models are equivalent (in particular, belong to the same symmetry class BDI and flow towards the same infinite-randomness critical fixed point), their behavior differs drastically once interaction is added. Our density-matrix renormalization group calculations show that the complex-fermion chain remains at the noninteracting fixed point. On the other hand, the Majorana fermion chain experiences a spontaneous symmetry breaking and localizes for repulsive interaction. To explain the instability of the critical Majorana chain with respect to a combined effect of interaction and disorder, we consider interaction as perturbation to the infinite-randomness fixed point and calculate numerically two-wave-function correlation functions that enter interaction matrix elements. The numerical results supported by analytical arguments exhibit a rich structure of critical eigenstate correlations. This allows us to identify a relevant interaction operator that drives the Majorana chain away from the infinite-randomness fixed point. For the case of complex fermions, the interaction is irrelevant.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.100.134207

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We study the low-energy physics of a chain of Majorana fermions in the presence of interaction and disorder, emphasizing the difference between Majoranas and conventional (complex) fermions. While in the noninteracting limit both models are equivalent (in particular, belong to the same symmetry class BDI and flow towards the same infinite-randomness critical fixed point), their behavior differs drastically once interaction is added. Our density-matrix renormalization group calculations show that the complex-fermion chain remains at the noninteracting fixed point. On the other hand, the Majorana fermion chain experiences a spontaneous symmetry breaking and localizes for repulsive interaction. To explain the instability of the critical Majorana chain with respect to a combined effect of interaction and disorder, we consider interaction as perturbation to the infinite-randomness fixed point and calculate numerically two-wave-function correlation functions that enter interaction matrix elements. The numerical results supported by analytical arguments exhibit a rich structure of critical eigenstate correlations. This allows us to identify a relevant interaction operator that drives the Majorana chain away from the infinite-randomness fixed point. For the case of complex fermions, the interaction is irrelevant.
The quantum critical properties of interacting fermions in the presence of disorder are still not fully understood. While it is well known that for Dirac fermions, interactions are irrelevant to the noninteracting infinite randomness fixed point (IRFP), the problem remains largely open in the case of Majorana fermions which further display a much richer disorder-free phase diagram. Here, pushing the limits of density matrix renormalization group simulations, we carefully examine the ground state of a Majorana chain with both disorder and interactions. Building on appropriate boundary conditions and key observables such as entanglement, energy gap, and correlations, we strikingly find that the noninteracting Majorana IRFP is very stable against finite interactions, in contrast with previous claims.
Two-dimensional time-reversal-invariant topological superconductors host helical Majorana fermions at their boundary. We study the fate of these edge states under the combined influence of strong interactions and disorder, using the effective 1D lattice model for the edge introduced by Jones and Metlitski [Phys. Rev. B 104, 245130 (2021)]. We specifically develop a strong-disorder renormalization group analysis of the lattice model and identify a regime in which time-reversal is broken spontaneously, creating random magnetic domains; Majorana fermions localize to domain walls and form an infinite-randomness fixed point, identical to that appearing in the random transverse-field Ising model. While this infinite-randomness fixed point describes a fine-tuned critical point in a purely 1D system, in our edge context there is no obvious time-reversal-preserving perturbation that destabilizes the fixed point. Our analysis thus suggests that the infinite-randomness fixed point emerges as a stable phase on the edge of 2D topological superconductors when strong disorder and interactions are present.
Majorana zero modes, spontaneous Z2fZ_2^{f}Z2f​ symmetry breaking, and long range edge correlation in Kitaev chains: analytic solutions and density-matrix-renormalization-group study
We study Kitaev model in one-dimension with open boundary condition by using exact analytic methods for non-interacting system in the half filled limit as well as in the symmetric case of Δ=t\Delta=tΔ=t, and by using density-matrix-renormalization-group method for interacting system with nearest neighbor repulsion. We show explicitly that the emergence of Majorana zero mode is associated with the spontaneous symmetry broken of fermion number parity operator Z2fZ_2^fZ2f​, which is +1+1+1 for even number of fermions and −1-1−1 for odd number of fermions. Our results are in support of recent proposal by Klassen and Wen\cite{Klassen}, who proposed such spontaneous symmetry broken in systems with Majorana zero modes. We suggest and examine an edge correlation function of Majorana fermions to characterize the long range order in the topological superconducting states and study the phase diagram of the interating Kitaev chain.
Two-dimensional time-reversal-invariant topological superconductors host helical Majorana fermions at their boundary. We study the fate of these edge states under the combined influence of strong interactions and disorder, using the effective one-dimensional (1D) lattice model for the edge introduced by Jones and Metlitski [Phys. Rev. B 104, 245130 (2021)]. We specifically develop a strong-disorder renormalization-group analysis of the lattice model and identify a regime in which time-reversal is broken spontaneously, creating random magnetic domains; Majorana fermions localize to domain walls and form an infinite-randomness fixed point, identical to that appearing in the random transverse-field Ising model. While this infinite-randomness fixed point describes a fine-tuned critical point in a purely 1D system, in our edge context there is no obvious time-reversal-preserving perturbation that destabilizes the fixed point. Our analysis thus suggests that the infinite-randomness fixed point emerges as a stable phase on the edge of two-dimensional topological superconductors when strong disorder and interactions are present.
In this thesis exotic phases of models preserving the symmetries of the one-dimensional quantum Ising and three-state Potts chains are considered, the natural habitats of Majorana fermions and parafermions, respectively. Along with numerical techniques, conformal field theory (CFT) is used to study the resulting physics. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to the field and explains the basics of the numerical techniques to be used throughout the thesis. CFT is briefly introduced in Chapter 2 before the key results necessary for the thesis are given. In Chapter 3, self-dual interactions are added to the critical Ising model, giving a range of different phases. A tricritical Ising point separates the Ising phase from an order-disorder coexistence phase on the chirally symmetric line, while a supersymmetric line provides the transition to an incommensurate phase in the general model. The model is solved exactly on a free-fermionic line giving insight into the points where only numerical analysis can be performed. This is supplemented by Appendix A, where the qualitative difference between similar perturbations is considered. Chapters 4 and 5 consider models with the symmetries of the three-state Potts model. Various phases are found including an order-disorder coexistence phase, a second critical Potts phase, a "not-A" phase, and a representation symmetry protected topological phase. The effect of lattice momentum on the stability of phases and the connection with conformal field theory operators is studied. Lattice realizations of several CFTs are found, such as the tricritical Potts CFT and a CFT expressible in two different forms, either in terms of a boson and fermion, or Potts and tricritical Ising CFTs.
We study the effects of quenched disorder in a class of quantum chains with (p+1p+1p+1)-multispin interactions exhibiting a free fermionic spectrum, paying special attention to the case p=2p=2p=2. Depending if disorder couples to (i) all the couplings or just to (ii) some of them, we have two distinct physical scenarios. In case (i), we find that the transitions of the model are governed by a universal infinite-randomness critical point surrounded by quantum Griffiths phases similarly as happens to the random transverse-field Ising chain. In case (ii), we find that quenched disorder becomes an irrelevant perturbation: the clean critical behavior is stable and Griffiths phases are absent. Beyond the perturbative regime, disorder stabilizes a line of finite-randomness critical points (with nonuniversal critical exponents), that ends in a multicritical point of infinite-randomness type. In that case, quantum Griffiths phases also appear surrounding the finite-disorder transition point. We have characterized the correlation functions and the low-temperature thermodynamics of these chains. Our results are derived from a strong-disorder renormalization-group technique and from finite-size scaling analysis of the spectral gap computed exactly (up to sizes $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{7}$) via an efficient new numerical method recently introduced in the literature [Phys. Rev. B 104, 174206 (2021)].