Majorana Fermions in Equilibrium and Driven Cold Atom Quantum Wires

Feb, 2011
4 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.Lett. 106 (2011) 220402
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Abstract: (arXiv)
We introduce a new approach to create and detect Majorana fermions using optically trapped 1D fermionic atoms. In our proposed setup, two internal states of the atoms couple via an optical Raman transition---simultaneously inducing an effective spin-orbit interaction and magnetic field---while a background molecular BEC cloud generates s-wave pairing for the atoms. The resulting cold atom quantum wire supports Majorana fermions at phase boundaries between topologically trivial and nontrivial regions, as well as `Floquet Majorana fermions' when the system is periodically driven. We analyze experimental parameters, detection schemes, and various imperfections.
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  • 05.30.Pr
  • 03.75.Mn