No Arabic abstract
Time-reversal invariant topological superconductors are characterized by the presence of Majorana Kramers pairs localized at defects. One of the transport signatures of Majorana Kramers pairs is the quantized differential conductance of $4e^2/h$ when such a one-dimensional superconductor is coupled to a normal-metal lead. The resonant Andreev reflection, responsible for this phenomenon, can be understood as the boundary condition change for lead electrons at low energies. In this paper, we study the stability of the Andreev reflection fixed point with respect to electron-electron interactions in the Luttinger liquid. We first calculate the phase diagram for the Luttinger liquid-Majorana Kramers pair junction and show that its low-energy properties are determined by Andreev reflection scattering processes in the spin-triplet channel, i.e. the corresponding Andreev boundary conditions are similar to that in a spin-triplet superconductor - normal lead junction. We also study here a quantum dot coupled to a normal lead and a Majorana Kramers pair and investigate the effect of local repulsive interactions leading to an interplay between Kondo and Majorana correlations. Using a combination of renormalization group analysis and slave-boson mean-field theory, we show that the system flows to a new fixed point which is controlled by the Majorana interaction rather than the Kondo coupling. This Majorana fixed point is characterized by correlations between the localized spin and the fermion parity of each spin sector of the topological superconductor. We investigate the stability of the Majorana phase with respect to Gaussian fluctuations.
A quantum dot weakly coupled to two normal metal leads exhibits resonant transmission when one of the dot energy levels lies within the applied bias window. But when the quantum dot is sidecoupled to the transport channel, transmission in the channel is suppressed when a dot energy lies in the bias window. A steady current can also be driven in a transport channel by connecting it to superconducting reservoirs and applying a Josephson phase difference instead of a voltage bias. An interesting question is to investigate the transport across quantum dot connected to two superconductors maintained at a superconducting phase difference. To incorporate the geometry where quantum dot is sidecoupled, we consider a quantum dot with two sites connected to the superconductors in two geometrical configurations: (A) the one where both the sites are in the transport channel and (B) the other where only one site is in the transport channel and the second site sidecoupled. We find that both the configurations show resonant transmission for Josephson current and give qualitatively same result when the onsite energies of the two sites in the dot are equal. The two configurations exhibit distinct Josephson current characteristics when the onsite energies of the two sites are equal in magnitude and opposite in sign. We understand the obtained results. The systems studied are within the reach of current experiments.
We propose a universal gate set acting on a qubit formed by the degenerate ground states of a Coulomb-blockaded time-reversal invariant topological superconductor island with spatially separated Majorana Kramers pairs: the Majorana Kramers Qubit. All gate operations are implemented by coupling the Majorana Kramers pairs to conventional superconducting leads. Interestingly, in such an all-superconducting device, the energy gap of the leads provides another layer of protection from quasiparticle poisoning independent of the island charging energy. Moreover, the absence of strong magnetic fields - which typically reduce the superconducting gap size of the island - suggests a unique robustness of our qubit to quasiparticle poisoning due to thermal excitations. Consequently, the Majorana Kramers Qubit should benefit from prolonged coherence times and may provide an alternative route to a Majorana-based quantum computer.
In this paper we review some recent results concerning the physics of superconductor - Luttinger liquid proximity systems. We discuss both equilibrium (the pair amplitude, Josephson current, and the local density of states) and nonequilibrium (the subgap current) properties.
We study transport through a quantum dot side-coupled to two parallel Luttinger liquid leads in the presence of a Coulombic dot-lead interaction. This geometry enables an exact treatment of the inter-lead Coulomb interactions. We find that for dots symmetrically disposed between the two leads the correlation of charge fluctuations between the two leads can lead to an enhancement of the current at the Coulomb-blockade edge and even to a negative differential conductance. Moving the dot off center or separating the wires further converts the enhancement to a suppression.
The point contact tunnel junctions between a one-dimensional topological superconductor and single-channel quantum Hall (QH) liquids are investigated theoretically with bosonization technology and renormalization group methods. For the $ u=1$ integer QH liquid, the universal low-energy tunneling transport is governed by the perfect Andreev reflection fixed point with quantized zero-bias conductance $G(0)=2e^{2}/h$, which can serve as a definitive fingerprint of the existence of a Majorana fermion. For the $ u =1/m$ Laughlin fractional QH liquids, its transport is governed by the perfect normal reflection fixed point with vanishing zero-bias conductance and bias-dependent conductance $G(V) sim V^{m-2}$. Our setup is within reach of present experimental techniques.