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arXiv:2208.09346 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Majorana edge modes in a spinful-particle conserving model

Franco T. Lisandrini, Corinna Kollath

Published Dec 14, 2022• 6 citations
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Abstract

We show the presence of Majorana edge modes in an interacting fermionic ladder with spin in a number-conserved setting. The interchain single-particle hopping is suppressed and only a pair hopping is present between the different chains of the ladder. Additionally, the hopping along the chains is spin imbalanced and a transverse magnetic field is applied breaking time-reversal invariance. We study the robustness of the topological phase with respect to an on-site interaction between the spin-up and spin-down fermions and the spin-dependent imbalance of the hopping. The main result of the present work is that the topological phase survives for a finite region in the parameter space in the presence of interactions. The localized Majorana edge modes seem to be more stable in the case when the on-site interaction is an attraction.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.106.245121

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We show the presence of Majorana edge modes in an interacting fermionic ladder with spin in a number-conserved setting. The interchain single-particle hopping is suppressed and only a pair hopping is present between the different chains of the ladder. Additionally, the hopping along the chains is spin imbalanced and a transverse magnetic field is applied breaking time-reversal invariance. We study the robustness of the topological phase with respect to an on-site interaction between the spin-up and spin-down fermions and the spin-dependent imbalance of the hopping. The main result of the present work is that the topological phase survives for a finite region in the parameter space in the presence of interactions. The localized Majorana edge modes seem to be more stable in the case when the on-site interaction is an attraction.
One promising avenue to study one-dimensional (1D) topological phases is to realize them in synthetic materials such as cold atomic gases. Intriguingly, it is possible to realize Majorana boundary modes in a 1D number-conserving system consisting of two fermionic chains coupled only by pair-hopping processes [C. V. Kraus et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 173004 (2013)]. It is commonly believed that significant interchain single-particle tunneling necessarily destroys these Majorana modes, as it spoils the Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ fermion-parity symmetry that protects them. In this Rapid Communication, we present a mechanism to overcome this obstacle, by piercing a (synthetic) magnetic $\ensuremath{\pi}$ flux through each plaquette of the Fermi ladder. Using bosonization, we show that in this case there exists an exact leg-interchange symmetry that is robust to interchain hopping, and acts as fermion parity at long wavelengths. We utilize density matrix renormalization group and exact diagonalization to verify that the resulting model exhibits Majorana boundary modes up to large single-particle tunnelings, comparable to the intrachain hopping strength. Our work highlights the unusual impacts of different topologically trivial band structures on these interaction-driven topological phases, and identifies a distinct route to stabilizing Majorana boundary modes in 1D fermionic ladders.
In this work, we study interacting spinless fermions on a two-chain ladder with interchain pair tunneling while single-particle tunneling is suppressed at low energy. The model embodies a Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ symmetry associated with the fermion parity on each chain. We find that when the system is driven to the strong-coupling phase by the pair tunneling, Majorana excitations appear on the boundary. Such Majorana edge states correspond to two-fold degeneracy of ground states distinguished by different fermion parity on each chain, thus representing a generalization of one-dimensional topological superconductors. We also characterize the stability of the ground-state degeneracy against local perturbations. Lattice fermion models realizing such an effective field theory are discussed.
The remarkable properties and potential applications of Majorana fermions have led to considerable efforts in recent years to realize topological matters that host these excitations. For a number conserving system, there have been a few proposals, using either coupled chain models or a multi-component system with spin–orbit coupling (SOC), to create number fluctuation of fermion pairs in achieving Majorana fermions. In this work, we show that Majorana edge states can occur in a spinless Fermi gas in 1D lattices with tunable p -wave interaction. This is facilitated by the conversion between a pair of (open-channel) fermions and a (close channel) boson, thereby allowing the number fluctuation of fermion pairs in a single chain. This scheme requires neither SOC nor a multi-chain setup and can be implemented easily. Using the density-matrix-renormalization-group method, we have identified the Majorana phase in a wide range of parameter regimes as well as its associated phase transitions. The topological nature of the Majorana phase manifests itself in a strong edge–edge correlation in an open chain that is robust against disorder, as well as in a non-trivial winding number in the bulk generated by using twisted boundary condition. It is also shown that the Majorana phase in this system can be stable against atom losses due to few-body collisions on the same site, and can be easily identified from the fermion momentum distribution. These results pave the way for probing the intriguing Majorana physics in a simple and stable cold atoms system.
We consider a one-dimensional, time-reversal-invariant system with attractive interactions and spin-orbit coupling. Such a system is gapless due to the strong quantum fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. However, we show that a sharply defined topological phase with protected, exponentially localized edge states exists. If one of the spin components is conserved, the protection of the edge modes can be understood as a consequence of the presence of a spin gap. In the more general case, the localization of the edge states arises from a gap to single-particle excitations in the bulk. We consider specific microscopic models and demonstrate both analytically and numerically (using density matrix renormalization group calculations) that they can support the topologically nontrivial phase.
We devise a number-conserving scheme for the realization of Majorana zero modes in an interacting fermionic ladder coupled by Aharonov-Bohm cages. The latter provide an efficient mechanism to cancel single-particle hopping by destructive interference. The crucial parity symmetry in each wire is thus encoded in the geometry of the setup, in particular, its translation invariance. A generic nearest-neighbor interaction generates the desired correlated hopping of pairs. We exhibit the presence of an extended topological region in parameter space, first in a simplified effective model via bosonization techniques, and subsequently in a larger parameter regime with matrix-product-states numerical simulations. We demonstrate the adiabatic connection to previous models, including exactly solvable ones, and we briefly comment on possible experimental realizations in synthetic quantum platforms, like cold atomic samples.
In this Letter we present, in a number conserving framework, a model of interacting fermions in a two-wire geometry supporting nonlocal zero-energy Majorana-like edge excitations. The model has an exactly solvable line, on varying the density of fermions, described by a topologically nontrivial ground state wave function. Away from the exactly solvable line we study the system by means of the numerical density matrix renormalization group. We characterize its topological properties through the explicit calculation of a degenerate entanglement spectrum and of the braiding operators which are exponentially localized at the edges. Furthermore, we establish the presence of a gap in its single particle spectrum while the Hamiltonian is gapless, and compute the correlations between the edge modes as well as the superfluid correlations. The topological phase covers a sizable portion of the phase diagram, the solvable line being one of its boundaries.