Majorana Fermions in Equilibrium and in Driven Cold-Atom Quantum Wires
Abstract
We introduce a new approach to create and detect Majorana fermions using optically trapped 1D fermionic atoms. In our proposed setup, two internal states of the atoms couple via an optical Raman transition—simultaneously inducing an effective spin-orbit interaction and magnetic field—while a background molecular BEC cloud generates s-wave pairing for the atoms. The resulting cold-atom quantum wire supports Majorana fermions at phase boundaries between topologically trivial and nontrivial regions, as well as "Floquet Majorana fermions" when the system is periodically driven. We analyze experimental parameters, detection schemes, and various imperfections.
Additional Information
© 2011 American Physical Society. Received 26 February 2011; revised 27 April 2011; published 2 June 2011. We would like to thank Ian Spielman for enlightening discussions. This work was supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, DARPA OLE program, CUA, NSF, AFOSR Quantum Simulation MURI, AFOSR MURI on Ultracold Molecules, ARO-MURI on Atomtronics, and Dutch Science Foundation NWO/FOM.Attached Files
Published - Jiang2011p14114Phys_Rev_Lett.pdf
Supplemental Material - ColdAtomsMF_EPAPS_20110507.pdf
Supplemental Material - README.TXT
Files
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 24148
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20110621-093218853
- Sherman Fairchild Foundation
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms
- NSF
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
- Army Research Office (ARO)
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)
- Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM)
- Created
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2011-06-21Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Institute for Quantum Information and Matter