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Published February 19, 2013 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Suppression of 2π phase slip due to hidden zero modes in one-dimensional topological superconductors

Abstract

We study phase slips in one-dimensional topological superconducting wires. These wires have been proposed as building blocks for topologically protected qubits in which the quantum information is distributed over the length of the device and thus is immune to local sources of decoherence. However, phase slips are nonlocal events that can result in decoherence. Phase slips in topological superconductors are peculiar for the reason that they occur in multiples of 4π (instead of 2π in conventional superconductors). We reestablish this fact via a beautiful analogy to the particle physics concept of dynamic symmetry breaking by explicitly finding a "hidden" zero mode in the fermion spectrum computed in the background of a 2π phase slip. Armed with the understanding of phase slips in topological superconductors, we propose a simple experimental setup with which the predictions can be tested by monitoring the tunneling rate of a superconducting flux quantum through a topological superconducting wire.

Additional Information

© 2013 American Physical Society. Received 17 September 2012; published 19 February 2013. It is our pleasure to thank J. Alicea and G. Refael for useful discussions. The authors acknowledge support from the Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Experience program, the Rose Hills foundation, the Lee A. DuBridge fellowship, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, DARPA-QuEST program, IQIM, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, funds of the Erdal Inönü chair, and TUBITAK under Grant No. 110T841. I.A. thanks the Instituut-Lorentz for their hospitality.

Attached Files

Published - PhysRevB.87.064506.pdf

Submitted - 1209.2161v2.pdf

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August 19, 2023
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