Interacting Majorana Fermions Research Articles

Resilient Infinite Randomness Criticality for a Disordered Chain of Interacting Majorana Fermions.

The quantum critical properties of interacting fermions in the presence of disorder are still not fully understood. While it is well known that for Dirac fermions, interactions are irrelevant to the noninteracting infinite randomness fixed point (IRFP), the problem remains largely open in the case of Majorana fermions which further display a much richer disorder-free phase diagram. Here, pushing the limits of density matrix renormalization group simulations, we carefully examine the ground state of a Majorana chain with both disorder and interactions. Building on appropriate boundary conditions and key observables such as entanglement, energy gap, and correlations, we strikingly find that the noninteracting Majorana IRFP is very stable against finite interactions, in contrast with previous claims.

Topological quantum critical points in strong coupling limits: Global symmetries and strongly interacting Majorana fermions

In this paper, we discuss strong coupling limits of topological quantum critical points (TQCPs) where quantum phase transitions between two topological distinct superconducting states take place. We illustrate that while superconducting phases on both sides of TQCPs spontaneously break the same symmetries, universality classes of critical states can be identified only when global symmetries in topological states are further specified. In dimensions $d=2\phantom{\rule{4.pt}{0ex}}\text{and}\phantom{\rule{4.pt}{0ex}}3$, we find that continuous $(d+1)\mathrm{th}$-order transitions at weakly interacting TQCPs that were pointed out previously in the presence of the emergent Lorentz symmetry can be terminated by strongly interacting fixed points of Majorana fields. For $2d$ time reversal symmetry breaking TQCPs, termination points are supersymmetric with $\mathcal{N}=4{N}_{f}=1$ (where ${N}_{f}$ is the number of four-component Dirac fermions and $\mathcal{N}$ is the number of two-component real fermions) beyond which transitions are discontinuous first-order ones. For $2d$ time reversal symmetric TQCPs without other global symmetries, termination points of $(d+1)\mathrm{th}$-order continuous transition lines are generically conformal invariant without supersymmetry. Beyond these strong coupling fixed points, there are first-order discontinuous transitions as far as the protecting symmetry is not spontaneously broken but no direct transitions if the protecting symmetry is spontaneously broken in the presence of strong interactions. In this case, termination points can become supersymmetric with $\mathcal{N}=4{N}_{f}=2$ only when interacting Majorana fermions further display an emergent global $\text{U}(1)$ symmetry. In $3d$, strong coupling termination points can be further effectively represented by new emergent gapless real bosons weakly coupled with free gapless Majorana fermions. However, in $1d$, time reversal symmetric $(d+1)\mathrm{th}$ continuous transition lines of TQCPs are terminated by simple free Majorana fermion fixed points.

Gapless state of interacting Majorana fermions in a strain-induced Landau level

Mechanical strain can generate a pseudo-magnetic field, and hence Landau levels (LL), for low energy excitations of quantum matter in two dimensions. We study the collective state of the fractionalised Majorana fermions arising from residual generic spin interactions in the central LL, where the projected Hamiltonian reflects the spin symmetries in intricate ways: emergent U(1) and particle-hole symmetries forbid any bilinear couplings, leading to an intrinsically strongly interacting system; also, they allow the definition of a filling fraction, which is fixed at 1/2. We argue that the resulting many-body state is gapless within our numerical accuracy, implying ultra-short-ranged spin correlations, while chirality correlators decay algebraically. This amounts to a Kitaev `non-Fermi' spin liquid, and shows that interacting Majorana Fermions can exhibit intricate behaviour akin to fractional quantum Hall physics in an insulating magnet.

Operator growth bounds in a cartoon matrix model

We study operator growth in a model of N(N − 1)/2 interacting Majorana fermions that live on the edges of a complete graph of N vertices. Terms in the Hamiltonian are proportional to the product of q fermions that live on the edges of cycles of length q. This model is a cartoon “matrix model”: the interaction graph mimics that of a single-trace matrix model, which can be holographically dual to quantum gravity. We prove (non-perturbatively in 1/N and without averaging over any ensemble) that the scrambling time of this model is at least of order log N, consistent with the fast scrambling conjecture. We comment on apparent similarities and differences between operator growth in our “matrix model” and in the melonic models.

Chaos on the hypercube

We analyze the spectral properties of a d-dimensional HyperCubic (HC) lattice model originally introduced by Parisi. The U(1) gauge links of this model give rise to a magnetic flux of constant magnitude ϕ but random orientation through the faces of the hypercube. The HC model, which also can be written as a model of 2d interacting Majorana fermions, has a spectral flow that is reminiscent of Maldacena-Qi (MQ) model, and its spectrum at ϕ = 0, actually coincides with the coupling term of the MQ model. As was already shown by Parisi, at leading order in 1/d, the spectral density of this model is given by the density function of the Q-Hermite polynomials, which is also the spectral density of the double-scaled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model. Parisi demonstrated this by mapping the moments of the HC model to Q-weighted sums on chord diagrams. We point out that the subleading moments of the HC model can also be mapped to weighted sums on chord diagrams, in a manner that descends from the leading moments. The HC model has a magnetic inversion symmetry that depends on both the magnitude and the orientation of the magnetic flux through the faces of the hypercube. The spectrum for fixed quantum number of this symmetry exhibits a transition from regular spectra at ϕ = 0 to chaotic spectra with spectral statistics given by the Gaussian Unitary Ensembles (GUE) for larger values of ϕ. For small magnetic flux, the ground state is gapped and is close to a Thermofield Double (TFD) state.

Electrical Probes of the Non-Abelian Spin Liquid in Kitaev Materials

Recent thermal-conductivity measurements evidence a magnetic-field-induced non-Abelian spin liquid phase in the Kitaev material $\alpha$-$\mathrm{RuCl}_{3}$. Although the platform is a good Mott insulator, we propose experiments that electrically probe the spin liquid's hallmark chiral Majorana edge state and bulk anyons, including their exotic exchange statistics. We specifically introduce circuits that exploit interfaces between electrically active systems and Kitaev materials to `perfectly' convert electrons from the former into emergent fermions in the latter---thereby enabling variations of transport probes invented for topological superconductors and fractional quantum Hall states. Along the way we resolve puzzles in the literature concerning interacting Majorana fermions, and also develop an anyon-interferometry framework that incorporates nontrivial energy-partitioning effects. Our results illuminate a partial pathway towards topological quantum computation with Kitaev materials.

Anomalies, a mod 2 index, and dynamics of 2d adjoint QCD

We show that 22d adjoint QCD, an SU(N)SU(N) gauge theory with one massless adjoint Majorana fermion, has a variety of mixed ’t Hooft anomalies. The anomalies are derived using a recent mod 22 index theorem and its generalization that incorporates ’t Hooft flux. Anomaly matching and dynamical considerations are used to determine the ground-state structure of the theory. The anomalies, which are present for most values of NN, are matched by spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. We find that massless 22d adjoint QCD confines for N >2N>2, except for test charges of NN-ality N/2N/2, which are deconfined. In other words, \mathbb Z_NℤN center symmetry is unbroken for odd NN and spontaneously broken to \mathbb Z_{N/2}ℤN/2 for even NN. All of these results are confirmed by explicit calculations on small \mathbb{R}\times S^1ℝ×S1. We also show that this non-supersymmetric theory exhibits exact Bose-Fermi degeneracies for all states, including the vacua, when NN is even. Furthermore, for most values of NN, 22d massive adjoint QCD describes a non-trivial symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase of matter, including certain cases where the number of interacting Majorana fermions is a multiple of 88. As a result, it fits into the classification of (1+1)(1+1)d SPT phases of interacting Majorana fermions in an interesting way.

The coupled SYK model at finite temperature

Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, which describes N randomly interacting Majorana fermions in 0+1 dimension, is found to be an solvable UV-complete toy model for holographic duality in nearly AdS2 dilaton gravity. Ref. [1] proposed a modified model by coupling two identical SYK models, which at low-energy limit is dual to a global AdS2 geometry. This geometry is an “eternal wormhole” because the two boundaries are causally connected. Increasing the temperature drives a Hawking-Page like transition from the eternal wormhole geometry to two disconnected black holes with coupled matter field. To gain more understanding of the coupled SYK model, in this work, we study the finite temperature spectral function of this system by numerical solving the Schwinger-Dyson equation in real-time. We find in the low-temperature phase the system is well described by weakly interacting fermions with renormalized single-particle gap, while in the high temperature phase the system is strongly interacting and the single-particle peaks merge. We also study the q dependence of the spectral function.

Supersymmetry in an interacting Majorana model on the kagome lattice

We construct a supersymmetric model of interacting Majorana fermions on the kagome lattice. In the infinite-coupling limit, the model exhibits an extensively degenerate ground state manifold separated in two topological sectors, in addition to two parity supersectors. An exact solution for thin-torus geometries allows us to analytically construct the entire zero-energy ground state manifold. Upon inclusion of hopping terms with energy scale $g$, the supersymmetry is spontaneously broken with the ground state energy density scaling as $g^4$. We also briefly discuss the non-interacting limit of the model, which exhibits a zero-energy flat band and Majorana Chern bands.

Specific heat of 2D interacting Majorana fermions from holography

Majorana fermions are a fascinating medium for discovering new phases of matter. However, the standard analytical tools are very limited in probing the non-perturbative aspects of interacting Majoranas in more than one dimensions. Here, we employ the holographic correspondence to determine the specific heat of a two-dimensional interacting gapless Majorana system. To perform our analysis we first describe the interactions in terms of a pseudo-scalar torsion field. We then allow fluctuations in the background curvature thus identifying our model with a (2 + 1)-dimensional Anti-de Sitter (AdS) geometry with torsion. By employing the AdS/CFT correspondence, we show that the interacting model is dual to a (1 + 1)-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) with central charge that depends on the interaction coupling. This non-perturbative result enables us to determine the effect interactions have in the specific heat of the system at the zero temperature limit.

Quantum chaos in the Brownian SYK model with large finite N : OTOCs and tripartite information

We consider the Brownian SYK model of N interacting Majorana fermions, with random couplings that are taken to vary independently at each time. We study the out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) of arbitrary observables and the Rényi-2 tripartite information of the unitary evolution operator, which were proposed as diagnostic tools for quantum chaos and scrambling, respectively. We show that their averaged dynamics can be studied as a quench problem at imaginary times in a model of N qudits, where the Hamiltonian displays site-permutational symmetry. By exploiting a description in terms of bosonic collective modes, we show that for the quantities of interest the dynamics takes place in a subspace of the effective Hilbert space whose dimension grows either linearly or quadratically with N , allowing us to perform numerically exact calculations up to N = 106. We analyze in detail the interesting features of the OTOCs, including their dependence on the chosen observables, and of the tripartite information. We observe explicitly the emergence of a scrambling time t∗∼ ln N controlling the onset of both chaotic and scrambling behavior, after which we characterize the exponential decay of the quantities of interest to the corresponding Haar scrambled values.

Scalable fermionic error correction in Majorana surface codes

We study the error correcting properties of Majorana Surface Codes (MSC), topological quantum codes constructed out of interacting Majorana fermions, which can be used to store quantum information and perform quantum computation. These quantum memories suffer from purely "fermionic" errors, such as quasiparticle poisoning (QP), that have no analog in conventional platforms with bosonic qubits. In physical realizations where QP dominates, we show that errors can be corrected provided that the poisoning rate is below a threshold of $\sim11\%$. When QP is highly suppressed and fermionic bilinear ("bosonic") errors become dominant, we find an error threshold of $\sim16\%$, which is much higher than the threshold for spin-based topological memories like the Surface code or the Color code. In addition, we derive new lattice gauge theories to account for measurement errors. These results, together with the inherent error suppression provided by the superconducting gap in physical realizations of the MSC, makes this a strong candidate for a robust topological quantum memory.

Supersymmetry breaking and Nambu-Goldstone fermions in interacting Majorana chains

We introduce and study a lattice fermion model in one dimension with explicit $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetry (SUSY). The Hamiltonian of the model is defined by the square of a supercharge built from Majorana fermion operators. The model describes interacting Majorana fermions and its properties depend only on a single parameter $g$. When $g=1$, we find that SUSY is unbroken and the ground states are identical to those of the frustration-free Kitaev chains. We also find a parameter regime in which SUSY is restored in the infinite volume limit. For sufficiently large $g$, we prove that SUSY is spontaneously broken and the low-lying excitations are gapless, which can be thought of as Nambu-Goldstone fermions. We then show numerically that these gapless modes have cubic dispersion at long wavelength.

Fibonacci Topological Superconductor.

We introduce a model of interacting Majorana fermions that describes a superconducting phase with a topological order characterized by the Fibonacci topological field theory. Our theory, which is based on a SO(7)_{1}/(G_{2})_{1} coset factorization, leads to a solvable one-dimensional model that is extended to two dimensions using a network construction. In addition to providing a description of the Fibonacci phase without parafermions, our theory predicts a closely related "anti-Fibonacci" phase, whose topological order is characterized by the tricritical Ising model. We show that Majorana fermions can split into a pair of Fibonacci anyons, and propose an interferometer that generalizes the Z_{2} Majorana interferometer and directly probes the Fibonacci non-Abelian statistics.

Model of chiral spin liquids with Abelian and non-Abelian topological phases

We present a two-dimensional lattice model for quantum spin-1/2 for which the low-energy limit is governed by four flavors of strongly interacting Majorana fermions. We study this low-energy effective theory using two alternative approaches. The first consists of a mean-field approximation. The second consists of a Random Phase approximation (RPA) for the single-particle Green's functions of the Majorana fermions built from their exact forms in a certain one-dimensional limit. The resulting phase diagram consists of two competing chiral phases, one with Abelian and the other with non-Abelian topological order, separated by a continuous phase transition. Remarkably, the Majorana fermions propagate in the two-dimensional bulk, as in the Kitaev model for a spin liquid on the honeycomb lattice. We identify the vison fields, which are mobile (they are static in the Kitaev model) domain walls propagating along only one of the two space directions.

Approximating the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model with Majorana wires

The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model describes a collection of randomly interacting Majorana fermions that exhibits profound connections to quantum chaos and black holes. We propose a solid-state implementation based on a quantum dot coupled to an array of topological superconducting wires hosting Majorana zero modes. Interactions and disorder intrinsic to the dot mediate the desired random Majorana couplings, while an approximate symmetry suppresses additional unwanted terms. We use random matrix theory and numerics to show that our setup emulates the SYK model (up to corrections that we quantify) and discuss experimental signatures.

Digital Quantum Simulation of Minimal AdS/CFT.

We propose the digital quantum simulation of a minimal AdS/CFT model in controllable quantum platforms. We consider the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model describing interacting Majorana fermions with randomly distributed all-to-all couplings, encoding nonlocal fermionic operators onto qubits to efficiently implement their dynamics via digital techniques. Moreover, we also give a method for probing nonequilibrium dynamics and the scrambling of information. Finally, our approach serves as a protocol for reproducing a simplified low-dimensional model of quantum gravity in advanced quantum platforms as trapped ions and superconducting circuits.

Quantum Monte Carlo simulation of a two-dimensional Majorana lattice model

We study interacting Majorana fermions in two dimensions as a low-energy effective model of a vortex lattice in two-dimensional time-reversal-invariant topological superconductors. For that purpose, we implement ab-initio quantum Monte Carlo simulation to the Majorana fermion system in which the path-integral measure is given by a semi-positive Pfaffian. We discuss spontaneous breaking of time-reversal symmetry at finite temperature.

Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model as Liouville quantum mechanics

We show that the proper inclusion of soft reparameterization modes in the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model of N randomly interacting Majorana fermions reduces its long-time behavior to that of Liouville quantum mechanics. As a result, all zero temperature correlation functions decay with the universal exponent ∝τ−3/2 for times larger than the inverse single particle level spacing τ≫Nln⁡N. In the particular case of the single particle Green function this behavior is manifestation of the zero-bias anomaly, or scaling in energy as ϵ1/2. We also present exact diagonalization study supporting our conclusions.

Tricritical Ising phase transition in a two-ladder Majorana fermion lattice

We introduce a two-ladder lattice model with interacting Majorana fermions that could be realized on the surfaces of a topological insulator film. We study this model by a combination of analytical and numerical techniques and find a phase diagram that features both gapless and gapped phases as well as interesting phase transitions including a quantum critical point in the tricritical Ising (TCI) universality class. The latter occurs at an intermediate coupling strength at a meeting point of a first-order transition line and an Ising critical line and is known to be described by a superconformal field theory with central charge $c =\frac{7}{10}$. We discuss the experimental feasibility of constructing the model and tuning parameters to the vicinity of the TCI point where signatures of the elusive supersymmetry can be observed.