English

Disorder-induced Majorana metal in interacting non-Abelian anyon systems

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2012-04-12 v2 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks

Abstract

We demonstrate that a thermal metal of Majorana fermions forms in a two-dimensional system of interacting non-Abelian (Ising) anyons in the presence of moderate disorder. This bulk metallic phase arises in the ν=5/2\nu=5/2 quantum Hall state when disorder pins the anyonic quasiparticles. More generally, it naturally occurs for various proposed systems supporting Majorana fermion zero modes when disorder induces the random pinning of a finite density of vortices. This includes all two-dimensional topological superconductors in so-called symmetry class D. A distinct experimental signature of the thermal metal phase is the presence of bulk heat transport down to zero temperature.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1106.6265,
  title  = {Disorder-induced Majorana metal in interacting non-Abelian anyon systems},
  author = {Chris R. Laumann and Andreas W. W. Ludwig and David A. Huse and Simon Trebst},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1106.6265},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

4 pages, 6 figures