No Arabic abstract
We show how to exchange (braid) Majorana fermions in a network of superconducting nanowires by control over Coulomb interactions rather than tunneling. Even though Majorana fermions are charge-neutral quasiparticles (equal to their own antiparticle), they have an effective long-range interaction through the even-odd electron number dependence of the superconducting ground state. The flux through a split Josephson junction controls this interaction via the ratio of Josephson and charging energies, with exponential sensitivity. By switching the interaction on and off in neighboring segments of a Josephson junction array, the non-Abelian braiding statistics can be realized without the need to control tunnel couplings by gate electrodes. This is a solution to the problem how to operate on topological qubits when gate voltages are screened by the superconductor.
We study the dynamical process of braiding Majorana bound states in the presence of the coupling to photons in a microwave cavity. We show theoretically that the $pi/4$ phase associated with the braiding of Majoranas, as well as the parity of the ground state are imprinted into the photonic field of the cavity, which can be detected by dispersive readouts techniques. These manifestations are purely dynamical, they occur in the absence of any splitting of the MBS that are exchanged, and they disappear in the static setups studied previously. Conversely, the cavity can affect the braiding phase, which in turn should allow for cavity controlled braiding.
We study theoretically the electrical current and low-frequency noise for a linear Josephson junction structure on a topological insulator, in which the superconductor forms a closed ring and currents are injected from normal regions inside and outside the ring. We find that this geometry offers a signature for the presence of gapless 1D Majorana fermion modes that are predicted in the channel when the phase difference phi, controlled by the magnetic flux through the ring, is pi. We show that for low temperature the linear conductance jumps when phi passes through pi, accompanied by non-local correlations between the currents from the inside and outside of the ring. We compute the dependence of these features on temperature, voltage and linear dimensions, and discuss the implications for experiments.
As part of the intense effort towards identifying platforms in which Majorana bound states can be realized and manipulated to perform qubit operations, we propose a topological Josephson junction architecture that achieves these capabilities and which can be experimentally implemented. The platform uses conventional superconducting electrodes deposited on a topological insulator film to form networks of proximity-coupled lateral Josephson junctions. Magnetic fields threading the network of junction barriers create Josephson vortices that host Majorana bound states localized in the junction where the local phase difference is an odd multiple of $pi$, i.e. attached to the cores of the Josephson vortices. This enables us to manipulate the Majorana states by moving the Josephson vortices, achieving functionality exclusive to these systems in contrast to others, such as those composed of topological superconductor nanowires. We describe protocols for: 1) braiding localized Majorana states by exchange, 2) controlling the separation and hence the coupling of adjacent localized Majorana states to effect non-Abelian rotations via hybridization of the Majorana modes, and 3) reading out changes in the non-local parity correlations induced by such operations. These schemes make use of the application of current pulses and local magnetic field pulses to control the location of vortices, and measurements of the Josephson current-phase relation to reveal the presence of the Majorana bound states. We describe the architecture and schemes in the context of experiments currently underway.
The Josephson energy of two superconducting islands containing Majorana fermions is a 4pi-periodic function of the superconducting phase difference. If the islands have a small capacitance, their ground state energy is governed by the competition of Josephson and charging energies. We calculate this ground state energy in a ring geometry, as a function of the flux -Phi- enclosed by the ring, and show that the dependence on the Aharonov-Bohm phase 2ePhi/hbar remains 4pi-periodic regardless of the ratio of charging and Josephson energies - provided that the entire ring is in a topologically nontrivial state. If part of the ring is topologically trivial, then the charging energy induces quantum phase slips that restore the usual 2pi-periodicity.
The non-Abelian braiding of Majorana fermions is one of the most promising operations providing a key building block for the realization of topological quantum computation. Recently, the chiral Majorana fermions were observed in a hybrid junction btween a quantum anomalous Hall insulator and an s-wave superconductor. Here we show that if a quantum dot or Majorana zero mode couples to the chiral Majorana fermions, the resulting resonant exchange of chiral Majorana fermions can lead to the non-Abelian braiding. Remarkably, any operation in the braid group can be achieved by this scheme. We further propose electrical transport experiments to observe the braiding of four chiral Majorana fermions and demonstrate the non-Abelian braiding statistics in four-terminal devices of the hybrid junctions. Both a conductance peak due to the braiding and the braiding-order dependent conductance are predicted. These findings pave a way to perform any braiding operation of chiral Majorana fermions by electrically controllable quantum dots.