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arXiv:2205.11222

Stability of Majorana Edge Zero Modes against Interactions

Tohru Koma

Published May 23, 2022• 4 citations
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Abstract

We study an interacting Majorana chain with an open boundary condition. In the case without interactions, the system shows a prototypical Majorana edge zero mode in the sector of the ground state with a spectral gap above the sector. We prove that both of the Majorana edge zero mode and the non-vanishing spectral gap are stable against generic weak interactions whose fermion parity is even. We also deal with the corresponding ladder systems, and discuss the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ index for the Majorana edge zero modes.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2205.11222

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We study an interacting Majorana chain with an open boundary condition. In the case without interactions, the system shows a prototypical Majorana edge zero mode in the sector of the ground state with a spectral gap above the sector. We prove that both of the Majorana edge zero mode and the non-vanishing spectral gap are stable against generic weak interactions whose fermion parity is even. We also deal with the corresponding ladder systems, and discuss the Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ index for the Majorana edge zero modes.
We study a system of interacting spinless fermions in one dimension that, in the absence of interactions, reduces to the Kitaev chain [Kitaev, Phys. Usp. 44, 131 (2001)]. In the noninteracting case, a signal of topological order appears as zero-energy modes localized near the edges. We show that the exact ground states can be obtained analytically even in the presence of nearest-neighbor repulsive interactions when the on-site (chemical) potential is tuned to a particular function of the other parameters. As with the noninteracting case, the obtained ground states are twofold degenerate and differ in fermionic parity. We prove the uniqueness of the obtained ground states and show that they can be continuously deformed to the ground states of the noninteracting Kitaev chain without gap closing. We also demonstrate explicitly that there exists a set of operators each of which maps one of the ground states to the other with opposite fermionic parity. These operators can be thought of as an interacting generalization of Majorana edge zero modes.
Abstract A sign of topological order in a gapped one-dimensional quantum chain is the existence of edge zero modes. These occur in the Z 2-invariant Ising/Majorana chain, where they can be understood using free-fermion techniques. Here I discuss their presence in spin chains with Z n symmetry, and prove that for appropriate couplings they are exact, even in this strongly interacting system. These modes are naturally expressed in terms of parafermions, generalizations of fermions to the Z n case. I show that parafermionic edge zero modes do not occur in the usual ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic cases, but rather only when the interactions are chiral, so that spatial-parity and time-reversal symmetries are broken.
It is widely believed that the spectral gap above the Fermi sea ground state of lattice free fermions is stable against generic weak interactions. Quite recently, Hastings presented a new interesting idea to prove the stability for Majorana free fermions. He ingeniously used Majorana fermions so that the unperturbed Hamiltonian of the free fermion part is mapped into a frustration-free form. In this paper, we refine Hastings's argument, and give a complete proof of the stability of the spectral gap above the Fermi sea ground state against generic weak interactions for generic lattice free fermions.
The ground state behavior of the spinless fermion chain with an interaction between fermions at neighboring sites is studied for free open boundaries. For the strong enough repulsion boundary gapless states (bound state of Majorana operators from opposite sites of the chain) can exist inside the gap for bulk excitations, i.e., in the topological insulator regime. We propose to use those Majorana zero modes as topological qubits, similar to the ones in one-dimensional topological superconductors. Possible physical realizations of the considered model are discussed.
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.
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.