Nontopological Majorana Zero Modes in Inhomogeneous Spin Ladders

Robinson, Neil J.; Altland, Alexander; Egger, Reinhold; Gergs, Niklas M.; Li, Wei; Schuricht, Dirk; Tsvelik, Alexei M.; Weichselbaum, Andreas und Konik, Robert M. (2019): Nontopological Majorana Zero Modes in Inhomogeneous Spin Ladders. In: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 122, No. 2, 027201

Abstract

We show that the coupling of homogeneous Heisenberg spin-1/2 ladders in different phases leads to the formation of interfacial zero energy Majorana bound states. Unlike Majorana bound states at the interfaces of topological quantum wires, these states are void of topological protection and generally susceptible to local perturbations of the host spin system. However, a key message of our Letter is that, in practice, they show a high degree of resilience over wide parameter ranges which may make them interesting candidates for applications.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Language: English