RKKY Interaction On Surfaces of Topological Insulators With Superconducting Proximity Effect

We consider the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction between magnetic impurities on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator with proximity induced superconductivity. A superconductor placed on the top of the topological insulator induces a gap in the surface electron states and gives rise to a long-ranged in-plane antiferromagnetic RKKY interaction. This interaction is frustrated due to strong spin-orbit coupling, decays as $1/r$ for $r<\xi$, where $r$ is the distance between two magnetic impurities and $\xi$ the superconducting coherence length, and dominates over the ferromagnetic and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya type interactions for $r>\xi$. We find the condition for the Yu-Shiba-Rusinov intragap states that are bound to the magnetic impurities.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Sequential Tunneling through Molecular Spin Rings

We consider electrical transport through molecules with Heisenberg-coupled spins arranged in a ring structure in the presence of an easy-axis anisotropy. The molecules are coupled to two metallic leads and a gate. In the charged state of the ring, a Zener double-exchange mechanism links transport properties to the underlying spin structure. This leads to a remarkable contact-site dependence of the current, which for an antiferromagnetic coupling of the spins can lead to a total suppression of the zero-bias conductance when the molecule is contacted at adjacent sites.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Conductance fluctuations in diffusive rings: Berry phase effects and criteria for adiabaticity

We study Berry phase effects on conductance properties of diffusive mesoscopic conductors, which are caused by an electron spin moving through an orientationally inhomogeneous magnetic field. Extending previous work, we start with an exact, i.e. not assuming adiabaticity, calculation of the universal conductance fluctuations in a diffusive ring within the weak localization regime, based on a differential equation which we derive for the diffuson in the presence of Zeeman coupling to a magnetic field texture. We calculate the field strength required for adiabaticity and show that this strength is reduced by the diffusive motion. We demonstrate that not only the phases but also the amplitudes of the h/2e Aharonov-Bohm oscillations are strongly affected by the Berry phase. In particular, we show that these amplitudes are completely suppressed at certain magic tilt angles of the external fields, and thereby provide a useful criterion for experimental searches. We also discuss Berry phase-like effects resulting from spin-orbit interaction in diffusive conductors and derive exact formulas for both magnetoconductance and conductance fluctuations. We discuss the power spectra of the magnetoconductance and the conductance fluctuations for inhomogeneous magnetic fields and for spin-orbit interaction.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures; minor revisions. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Correlations between Majorana fermions through a superconductor

We consider a model of ballistic quasi-one dimensional semiconducting wire with intrinsic spin-orbit interaction placed on the surface of a bulk s-wave superconductor (SC), in the presence of an external magnetic field. This setup has been shown to give rise to a topological superconducting state in the wire, characterized by a pair of Majorana-fermion (MF) bound states formed at the two ends of the wire. Here we demonstrate that, besides the well-known direct overlap-induced energy splitting, the two MF bound states may hybridize via elastic correlated tunneling processes through virtual quasiparticles states in the SC, giving rise to an additional energy splitting between MF states from the same as well as from different wires.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Proximity-induced Josephson π\pi-Junctions in Topological Insulators

We study two microscopic models of topological insulators in contact with an $s$-wave superconductor. In the first model the superconductor and the topological insulator are tunnel coupled via a layer of scalar and of randomly oriented spin impurities. Here, we require that spin-flip tunneling dominates over spin-conserving one. In the second model the tunnel coupling is realized by an array of single-level quantum dots with randomly oriented spins. It is shown that the tunnel region forms a $\pi$-junction where the effective order parameter changes sign. Interestingly, due to the random spin orientation the effective descriptions of both models exhibit time-reversal symmetry. We then discuss how the proposed $\pi$-junctions support topological superconductivity without magnetic fields and can be used to generate and manipulate Kramers pairs of Majorana fermions by gates

Topological Magnons and Edge States in Antiferromagnetic Skyrmion Crystals

Antiferromagnetic skyrmion crystals are magnetic phases predicted to exist in antiferromagnets with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions. Their spatially periodic noncollinear magnetic texture gives rise to topological bulk magnon bands characterized by nonzero Chern numbers. We find topologically-protected chiral magnonic edge states over a wide range of magnetic fields and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction values. Moreover, and of particular importance for experimental realizations, edge states appear at the lowest possible energies, namely, within the first bulk magnon gap. Thus, antiferromagnetic skyrmion crystals show great promise as novel platforms for topological magnonics.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev Inequalities via Fast Diffusion Flows

We give a simple proof of the $\lambda = d-2$ cases of the sharp Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality for $d\geq 3$, and the sharp Logarithmic Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality for $d=2$ via a monotone flow governed by the fast diffusion equation