When both inversion and time-reversal symmetries are broken, the critical current of a superconductor can be nonreciprocal. In this work we show that in certain classes of two-dimensional superconductors with antisymmetric spin-orbit coupling, Cooper
pairs acquire a finite momentum upon the application of an in-plane magnetic field, and as a result, critical currents in the direction parallel and antiparallel to the Cooper pair momentum become unequal. This supercurrent diode effect is also manifested in the polarity-dependence of in-plane critical fields induced by a supercurrent. These nonreciprocal effects may be found in polar SrTiO$_3$ film, few-layer MoTe$_2$ in the $T_d$ phase, and twisted bilayer graphene in which the valley degrees of freedom plays the role analogous to spin.
Although much progress has been made on the physics of magic angle twisted bilayer graphene at integer fillings, little attention has been given to fractional fillings. Here we show that the three-peak structure of Wannier orbitals, dictated by the s
ymmetry and topology of flat bands, facilitates the emergence of a novel state at commensurate fractional filling of $ u = n pm 1/3$. We dub this state a fractional correlated insulator. Specifically for the filling of $pm 1/3$ electrons per moir{e} unit cell, we show that short-range interactions alone imply an approximate extensive entropy due to the breathing degree of freedom of an irregular honeycomb lattice that emerges through defect lines. The leading further-range interaction lifts this degeneracy and selects a novel ferromagnetic nematic state that breaks AB/BA sublattice symmetry. The proposed fractional correlated insulating state might underlie the suppression of superconductivity at $ u = 2-1/3$ filling observed in arXiv:2004.04148. Further investigation of the proposed fractional correlated insulating state would open doors to new regimes of correlation effects in MATBG.
We introduce and study a minimum two-orbital Hubbard model on a triangular lattice, which captures the key features of both the trilayer ABC-stacked graphene-boron nitride heterostructure and twisted transition metal dichalcogenides in a broad parame
ter range. Our model comprises first- and second-nearest neighbor hoppings with valley-contrasting flux that accounts for trigonal warping in the band structure. For the strong-coupling regime with one electron per site, we derive a spin-orbital exchange Hamiltonian and find the semiclassical ground state to be a spin-valley density wave. We show that a relatively small second-neighbor exchange interaction is sufficient to stabilize the ordered state against quantum fluctuations. Effects of spin- and valley Zeeman fields as well as thermal fluctuations are also examined.
We study a Cooper pair transistor realized by a mesoscopic superconductor island that couples to a pair of $s$-wave superconducting leads. For a trivial island, the critical supercurrent between the leads exhibits a well-known $2e$-periodicity in the
island-gate charge. Here, we show that for an island with spatially separated zero-energy Majorana or Andreev bound states the periodicity of the magnitude of the critical supercurrent transitions to $1e$ in the island-gate charge. Moreover, for Andreev bound states the current-phase relation displays a sign reversal when the parity of the charge ground state of the island changes between even and odd. Notably, for Majorana bound states the same sign reversal does not occur. Our results highlight the relevance of measuring the full current-phase relation of a Cooper pair transistor for clarifying the nature of zero-energy bound states in candidate systems for topological superconductors and provide an initial step towards integrating Majorana qubits in superconducting circuits.
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.
We propose a platform for universal quantum computation that uses conventional $s$-wave superconducting leads to address a topological qubit stored in spatially separated Majorana bound states in a multi-terminal topological superconductor island. Bo
th the manipulation and read-out of this Majorana superconducting qubit are realized by tunnel couplings between Majorana bound states and the superconducting leads. The ability of turning on and off tunnel couplings on-demand by local gates enables individual qubit addressability while avoiding cross-talk errors. By combining the scalability of superconducting qubit and the robustness of topological qubits, the Majorana superconducting qubit may provide a promising and realistic route towards quantum computation.
We study a time-reversal-invariant topological superconductor island hosting spatially separated Majorana Kramers pairs, with weak tunnel couplings to two s-wave superconducting leads. When the topological superconductor island is in the Coulomb bloc
kade regime, we predict that a Josephson current flows between the two leads due to a non-local transfer of Cooper pairs mediated by the Majorana Kramers pairs. Interestingly, we find that the sign of the Josephson current is controlled by the joint parity of all four Majorana bound states on the island. Consequently, this parity-controlled Josephson effect can be used for qubit read-out in Majorana-based quantum computing.
We show that in the presence of $n$-fold rotation symmetries and time-reversal symmetry, the number of fermion flavors must be a multiple of $2n$ ($n=2,3,4,6$) on two-dimensional lattices, a stronger version of the well-known fermion doubling theorem
in the presence of only time-reversal symmetry. The violation of the multiplication theorems indicates anomalies, and may only occur on the surface of new classes of topological crystalline insulators. Put on a cylinder, these states have $n$ Dirac cones on the top and on the bottom surfaces, connected by $n$ helical edge modes on the side surface.
