Majorana fermions emerging from magnetic nanoparticles on a superconductor without spin-orbit coupling

Autor:	Choy, T. -P., Edge, J. M., Akhmerov, A. R., Beenakker, C. W. J.
Rok vydání:	2011
Předmět:	Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Zdroj:	Phys. Rev. B 84, 195442 (2011)
Druh dokumentu:	Working Paper
DOI:	10.1103/PhysRevB.84.195442
Popis:	There exists a variety of proposals to transform a conventional s-wave superconductor into a topological superconductor, supporting Majorana fermion mid-gap states. A necessary ingredient of these proposals is strong spin-orbit coupling. Here we propose an alternative system consisting of a one-dimensional chain of magnetic nanoparticles on a superconducting substrate. No spin-orbit coupling in the superconductor is needed. We calculate the topological quantum number of a chain of finite length, including the competing effects of disorder in the orientation of the magnetic moments and in the hopping energies, to identify the transition into the topologically nontrivial state (with Majorana fermions at the end points of the chain). Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures
Databáze:	arXiv
Externí odkaz:	http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.0419 Zobrazit plný text záznamu View this record from Arxiv