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arXiv:2208.09524 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Majorana correlations in quantum impurities coupled to a topological wire

G. S. Diniz, E. Vernek

Published Jan 17, 2023• 9 citations
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Abstract

In this paper, we investigate Majorana correlations in quantum impurities coupled to a topological superconducting wire. By employing a density matrix renormalization group approach, we have calculated the Majorana correlation functions in the ground state of the system for different positions of the impurities along the wire. We observe that the correlations decrease exponentially with the distance between the impurities and the ends of the wire. Moreover, different electron-electron interactions on the wire and on the impurities were also analyzed, and the results showed a stronger effect as the electron occupation in the wire is increased. In addition, while changing the occupation of the impurities by tuning their energy levels, we observe that, for specific values of $\ensuremath{\varepsilon}$, the absolute value of correlation is highly peaked when the chemical potential lies within the window of the topological regime. These peaks are associated with Coulomb blockade phenomena in the impurities, revealing very clearly its effect on the Majorana bound states in the topological phase of the system.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.107.045121

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In this paper, we investigate Majorana correlations in quantum impurities coupled to a topological superconducting wire. By employing a density matrix renormalization group approach, we have calculated the Majorana correlation functions in the ground state of the system for different positions of the impurities along the wire. We observe that the correlations decrease exponentially with the distance between the impurities and the ends of the wire. Moreover, different electron-electron interactions on the wire and on the impurities were also analyzed, and the results showed a stronger effect as the electron occupation in the wire is increased. In addition, while changing the occupation of the impurities by tuning their energy levels, we observe that, for specific values of \ensuremathε\ensuremath{\varepsilon}\ensuremathε, the absolute value of correlation is highly peaked when the chemical potential lies within the window of the topological regime. These peaks are associated with Coulomb blockade phenomena in the impurities, revealing very clearly its effect on the Majorana bound states in the topological phase of the system.
Among the broad spectrum of systems predicted to exhibit topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions, one-dimensional wires with strong spin-orbit coupling provide one of the most promising experimental candidates. Here we investigate the fate of the topological superconducting phase in such wires when repulsive interactions are present. Using a combination of density matrix renormalization group, bosonization, and Hartree--Fock techniques, we demonstrate that while interactions degrade the bulk gap---consistent with recent results of Gangadharaiah et al.---they also greatly expand the parameter range over which the topological phase arises. In particular, we show that with interactions this phase can be accessed over a broader chemical potential window, thereby leading to greater immunity against disorder-induced chemical potential fluctuations in the wire. We also suggest that in certain wires strong interactions may allow Majorana fermions to be generated without requiring a magnetic field.
Recent tunneling experiments on InSb hybrid superconductor-semiconductor devices have provided hope for a stabilization of Majorana edge modes in a spin-orbit quantum wire subject to a magnetic field and superconducting proximity effect. Connecting the experimental scenario with a microscopic description poses challenges of a different kind, such as accounting for the effect of interactions on the tunneling properties of the wire. We develop a density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) analysis of the tunneling spectra of interacting Majorana chains, which we explicate for the Kitaev chain model. Our DMRG approach allows us to calculate the spectral function down to zero frequency, where we analyze how the Majorana zero-bias peak is affected by interactions. For topological phase transitions between the topological and trivial superconducting phase in the Majorana wire, the bulk gap closure generically affects the proximity peaks and the Majorana peak.
In this study, the problem of strong Coulomb interactions in topological superconducting wire is analyzed by means of the density-matrix-renormalization-group (DMRG) approach. To analyze properties of edge states in the BDI-class structure, a quantity called Majorana polarization is used. From its dependence on wire length and an entanglement-spectrum degeneracy, topological phase diagrams are obtained. The DMRG calculations for the Shubin-Vonsovsky--type model of the wire show the transformation of phases with Majorana single and double modes (MSMs and MDMs, respectively) under the increase of onsite and intersite correlations. In particular, we demonstrate different scenarios including the possibilities of both induction and suppression of the MSMs and MDMs. It is shown that in the strongly correlated regime, the contributions of single-particle excitations to the Majorana-type states significantly decrease at low magnetic fxields. Moreover, the $t\ensuremath{-}{J}^{*}\ensuremath{-}V$ model is derived allowing to study the effective interactions and improve the DMRG numerics. It is found out that in the limiting case of the effective Hamiltonian with infinitely strong onsite repulsion, ttt model, the topological phases are destroyed. Finally, the ways to probe the MSMs and MDMs via the features of caloric functions are discussed.
We study the interplay between disorder and interaction in one-dimensional topological superconductors which carry localized Majorana zero-energy states. Using Abelian bosonization and the perturbative renormalization group approach, we obtain the renormalization group flow and the associated scaling dimensions of the parameters and identify the critical points of the low-energy theory. We predict a quantum phase transition from a topological superconducting phase to a nontopological localized phase, and obtain the phase boundary between these two phases as a function of the electron-electron interaction and the disorder strength in the nanowire. Based on an instanton analysis which incorporates the effect of disorder, we also identify a large regime of stability of the Majorana-carrying topological phase in the parameter space of the model.
By decreasing the transversal confinement potential in interacting quantum wires and populating the second energetically lowest sub-band, electron systems transition into a quasi-one-dimensional state with dominant superconducting correlations and one gapless mode. By combining effective field theory approach and numerical density matrix renormalization group simulations we show that this quasi-one-dimensional state is a topological state that hosts Majorana edge modes. We also study the single-particle correlations across the interface between this quasi-one-dimensional and single-channel states.
We use the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism and a self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation to numerically study the effects of a single impurity and interactions between the electrons (with and without spin) on the conductance of a quantum wire. We study how the conductance varies with the wire length, the temperature, and the strengths of the impurity and interactions. The numerical results for the dependence of the conductance on the wire length and temperature are compared with the results obtained from a renormalization group analysis based on the Hartree-Fock approximation. For the spin-1∕21∕21∕2 model with a repulsive on-site interaction or the spinless model with an attractive nearest neighbor interaction, we find that the conductance increases with increasing wire length or decreasing temperature. This can be explained using the Born approximation in scattering theory. For a strong impurity, the conductance is significantly different for a repulsive and an attractive impurity; this is due to the existence of a bound state in the latter case. In general, the large density deviations close to the impurity have an appreciable effect on the conductance at short distances which is not captured by the renormalization group equations.