Dissipative Majorana Quantum Wires.

Yizhen Huang,Zi Cai,Alejandro M Lobos

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2019.10.025

Abstract

SummaryIn this paper, we formulate and quantitatively examine the effect of dissipation on topological systems. We use a specific model of Kitaev quantum wire with an onsite Ohmic dissipation and perform a numerically exact method to investigate the effect of dissipation on the topological features of the system (e.g., the Majorana edge mode) at zero temperature. We find that even though the topological phase is robust against weak dissipation as it is supposed to be, it will eventually be destroyed by sufficiently strong dissipation via either a continuous quantum phase transition or a crossover depending on the symmetry of the system. The dissipation-driven quantum criticality has also been discussed.

Highlights

Topological quantum phases of matter are among the most notable phenomena in condensed matter physics (Thouless, 1998)
Instead of being classified by symmetries and their spontaneous breaking, topological phases of matters are identified by nonlocal topological orders that are immune to local perturbations (Wen, 2004)
We have studied the effect of dissipation on topological quantum phases by considering a specific model of Kitaev quantum wire with onsite Ohmic dissipation and found that the topological phase in this model will eventually be destroyed via either a continuous QPT or a crossover depending on the symmetry of the system

Summary

Introduction

Topological quantum phases of matter are among the most notable phenomena in condensed matter physics (Thouless, 1998). The intrinsic stability of the topological features in the underlying systems makes them a promising platform for quantum computation and information processing (Nayak et al, 2008). One of the major obstacles for the realization of a practical quantum computer is that quantum systems are inevitably coupled to their surroundings, which gives rise to dissipation and decoherence that is detrimental to the quantum coherence (Schlosshauer, 2007). Since coupling to the environment tends to drive a quantum system to be classical, topological phases are quantum in nature, it is natural to expect that sufficiently large bath-induced dissipation and decoherence will eventually destroy the topological phases in spite of their robustness against small perturbations. The question is: How large? And does the system experience a crossover or a phase transition during this process?

Results

Discussion

Conclusion