English

Exact analytical solution of a time-reversal-invariant topological superconducting wire

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2019-09-11 v2 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

We consider a model proposed before for a time-reversal-invariant topological superconductor (TRITOPS) which contains a hopping term tt, a chemical potential μ\mu, an extended ss-wave pairing Δ\Delta and spin-orbit coupling λ\lambda. We show that for Δ=λ|\Delta|=|\lambda|, μ=t=0\mu=t=0, the model can be solved exactly defining new fermion operators involving nearest-neighbor sites. The many-body ground state is four-fold degenerate due to the existence of two zero-energy modes localized exactly at the first and the last site of the chain. These four states show entanglement in the sense that creating or annihilating a zero-energy mode at the first site is proportional to a similar operation at the last site. By continuity, this property should persist for general parameters. Using these results we correct some statements related with the so called "time-reversal anomaly". Addition of a small hopping term for a chain with an even number of sites breaks the degeneracy and the ground state becomes unique with an even number of particles. We also consider a small magnetic field applied to one end of the chain. We compare the many-body excitation energies and spin projection along the spin-orbit direction for both ends of the chains with numerical results %for a small chain obtaining good agreement.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1905.04255,
  title  = {Exact analytical solution of a time-reversal-invariant topological superconducting wire},
  author = {Armando A. Aligia and Alberto Camjayi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.04255},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

11 pages, 2 figures, 1 figure, more calculations and references added, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B