No Arabic abstract
It has been argued that fluctuations of fermion parity are harmful for the demonstration of non-Abelian anyonic statistics. Here, we demonstrate a striking exception in which such fluctuations are actively used. We present a theory of coherent electron transport from a tunneling tip into a Corbino geometry Josephson junction where four Majorana bound states (MBSs) rotate. While the MBSs rotate, electron tunneling happens from the tip to one of the MBSs thereby changing the fermion parity of the MBSs. The tunneling events in combination with the rotation allow us to identify a novel braiding operator that does not commute with the braiding cycles in the absence of tunneling, revealing the non-Abelian nature of MBSs. The time-averaged tunneling current exhibits resonances as a function of the tip voltage with a period that is a direct consequence of the interference between the non-commuting braiding operations. Our work opens up a possibility for utilizing parity non-conserving processes to control non-Abelian states.
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.
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.
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.
Topological phases of matter have revolutionized the fundamental understanding of band theory and hold great promise for next-generation technologies such as low-power electronics or quantum computers. Single-gap topologies have been extensively explored, and a large number of materials have been theoretically proposed and experimentally observed. These ideas have recently been extended to multi-gap topologies, characterized by invariants that arise by the momentum space braiding of band nodes that carry non-Abelian charges. However, the constraints placed by the Fermi-Dirac distribution to electronic systems have so far prevented the experimental observation of multi-gap topologies in real materials. Here, we show that multi-gap topologies and the accompanying phase transitions driven by braiding processes can be readily observed in the bosonic phonon spectra of known monolayer silicates. The associated braiding process can be controlled by means of an electric field and epitaxial strain, and involves, for the first time, more than three bands. Finally, we propose that these conversion processes can be tracked by following the evolution of the Raman spectrum, providing a clear signature for the experimental verification of multi-gap topologies.
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.