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Register a new userEmergent Fractional Charge and Multiple Majoranas
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R. Jackiw
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To mark the 111th birthday of Eugene Wigner, we review topological excitations in diverse dimensions.
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Dedicated to Ludwig Faddeev on his 80th birthday. Ludwig exemplifies perfectly a mathematical physicist: significant contribution to mathematics (algebraic properties of integrable systems) and physics (quantum field theory). In this note I present an exercise which bridges mathematics (restricted Clifford algebra) to physics (Majorana fermions).
A physical model for a mixed-valence impurity in a metal must satisfy the Friedel screening theorem for both valences. Such a model is shown, following earlier work which showed low energy singularities in it, to be supersymmetric, leading to a free Majorana and a phase-shifted Majorana excitation. The theory extended approximately to a lattice of mixed-valence ions at appropriate filling gives, without fine-tuning the parameters, a protected gapless Majorana fermion band across the chemical potential, besides the mixed-valence particle and hole bands separated by gaps. In this situation the system is electrically neutral in linear response but has de Haas-van Alphen oscillations. This is used to explain the recently observed magneto-oscillations in mixed-valence insulators as well as their accompanying low energy thermodynamic and relaxation rate anomalies. Some predictions to test the validity of the theoretical results are provided, the most striking of which is that there should be extensive ground state entropy in such compounds.
Motivated by the recent work of QED$_3$-Chern-Simons quantum critical points of fractional Chern insulators (Phys. Rev. X textbf{8}, 031015, (2018)), we study its non-Abelian generalizations, namely QCD$_3$-Chern-Simons quantum phase transitions of fractional Chern insulators. These phase transitions are described by Dirac fermions interacting with non-Abelian Chern-Simons gauge fields ($U(N)$, $SU(N)$, $USp(N)$, etc.). Utilizing the level-rank duality of Chern-Simons gauge theory and non-Abelian parton constructions, we discuss two types of QCD$_3$ quantum phase transitions. The first type happens between two Abelian states in different Jain sequences, as opposed to the QED3 transitions between Abelian states in the same Jain sequence. A good example is the transition between $sigma^{xy}=1/3$ state and $sigma^{xy}=-1$ state, which has $N_f=2$ Dirac fermions interacting with a $U(2)$ Chern-Simons gauge field. The second type is naturally involving non-Abelian states. For the sake of experimental feasibility, we focus on transitions of Pfaffian-like states, including the Moore-Read Pfaffian, anti-Pfaffian, particle-hole Pfaffian, etc. These quantum phase transitions could be realized in experimental systems such as fractional Chern insulators in graphene heterostructures.
We describe the occurrence and physical role of zero-energy modes in the Dirac equation with a topologically non-trivial background.
Excitonic insulator is a coherent electronic phase that results from the formation of a macroscopic population of bound particle-hole pairs - excitons. With only a few candidate materials known, the collective excitonic behavior is challenging to observe, being obscured by crystalline lattice effects. Here we use polarization-resolved Raman spectroscopy to reveal the quadrupolar excitonic mode in the candidate zero-gap semiconductor Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$ disentangling it from the lattice phonons. The excitonic mode pronouncedly softens close to the phase transition, showing its electronic character, while its coupling to non-critical lattice modes is shown to enhance the transition temperature. On cooling, we observe the gradual emergence of coherent superpositions of band states at the correlated insulator gap edge, with strong departures from mean-field theory predictions. Our results demonstrate the realization of a strongly correlated excitonic state in an equilibrium bulk material.
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