Robustness of Majorana Fermion induced Fractional Josephson Effect

It is shown in previous works that the coupling between two Majorana end states in superconducting quantum wires leads to fractional Josephson effect. However, in realistic experimental conditions, multiple bands of the wires are occupied and the Majorana end states are accompanied by other fermionic end states. This raises the question concerning the robustness of fractional Josephson effect in these situations. In this work, we show that the absence of the avoided energy crossing which gives rise to the fractional Josephson effect is robust, even when the Majorana fermions are coupled with arbitrary strengths to other fermions. Moreover, we calculate the temperature dependence of the fractional Josephson current and show that it is suppressed by thermal excitations to the other fermion bound states.Comment: 4+ pages, 3 figure

Zero-bias peaks in spin-orbit coupled superconducting wires with and without Majorana end-states

One of the simplest proposed experimental probes of a Majorana bound-state is a quantized (2e^2/h) value of zero-bias tunneling conductance. When temperature is somewhat larger than the intrinsic width of the Majorana peak, conductance is no longer quantized, but a zero-bias peak can remain. Such a non-quantized zero-bias peak has been recently reported for semiconducting nanowires with proximity induced superconductivity. In this paper we analyze the relation of the zero-bias peak to the presence of Majorana end-states, by simulating the tunneling conductance for multi-band wires with realistic amounts of disorder. We show that this system generically exhibits a (non-quantized) zero-bias peak even when the wire is topologically trivial and does not possess Majorana end-states. We make comparisons to recent experiments, and discuss the necessary requirements for confirming the existence of a Majorana state.Comment: 5 pages, 4 Figure

Topological Excitations in Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates

We investigate the properties of skyrmion in the ferromagnetic state of spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates by means of the mean-field theory and show that the size of skyrmion is fixed to the order of the healing length. It is shown that the interaction between two skyrmions with oppositely rotating spin textures is attractive when their separation is large, following a unique power-law behavior with a power of -7/2.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Double Phase Transitions in Magnetized Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensation

It is investigated theoretically that magnetized Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) with the internal (spin) degrees of freedom exhibits a rich variety of phase transitions, depending on the sign of the interaction in the spin channel. In the antiferromagnetic interaction case there exist always double BEC transitions from single component BEC to multiple component BEC. In the ferromagnetic case BEC becomes always unstable at a lower temperature, leading to a phase separation. The detailed phase diagram for the temperature vs the polarization, the spatial spin structure, the distribution of non-condensates and the excitation spectrum are examined for the harmonically trapped systems.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Two-polariton bound states in the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model

We examine the eigenstates of the one-dimensional Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard (JCH) model in the two-excitation subspace. We discover that two-excitation bound states emerge when the ratio of vacuum Rabi frequency to the tunneling rate between cavities exceeds a critical value. We determine the critical ratio as a function of the quasi-momentum quantum number, and indicate that the bound states carry a strong correlation in which the two polaritons appear to be spatially confined together.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Shot Noise in Anyonic Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

We show how shot noise in an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer in the fractional quantum Hall regime probes the charge and statistics of quantum Hall quasiparticles. The dependence of the noise on the magnetic flux through the interferometer allows for a simple way to distinguish Abelian from non-Abelian quasiparticle statistics. In the Abelian case, the Fano factor (in units of the electron charge) is always lower than unity. In the non-Abelian case, the maximal Fano factor as a function of the magnetic flux exceeds one.Comment: references adde

Quantum Dot in 2D Topological Insulator: The Two-channel Kondo Fixed Point

In this work, a quantum dot couples to two helical edge states of a 2D topological insulator through weak tunnelings is studied. We show that if the electron interactions on the edge states are repulsive, with Luttinger liquid parameter $K < 1$, the system flows to a stable two-channel fixed point at low temperatures. This is in contrast to the case of a quantum dot couples to two Luttinger liquid leads. In the latter case, a strong electron-electron repulsion is needed, with $K<1/2$, to reach the two-channel fixed point. This two-channel fixed point is described by a boundary Sine-Gordon Hamiltonian with a $K$ dependent boundary term. The impurity entropy at zero temperature is shown to be $\ln\sqrt{2K}$. The impurity specific heat is $C \propto T^{\frac{2}{K}-2}$ when $2/3 < K < 1$, and $C \propto T$ when $K<2/3$. We also show that the linear conductance across the two helical edges has non-trivial temperature dependence as a result of the renormalization group flow.Comment: 4+\epsilon page