English

One-dimensional $\mathbb{Z}_4$ topological superconductor

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2024-08-13 v2 Superconductivity

Abstract

We describe the mean-field model of a one-dimensional topological superconductor with two orbitals per unit cell. Time-reversal symmetry is absent, but a nonsymmorphic symmetry, involving a translation by a fraction of the unit cell, mimics the role of time-reversal symmetry. As a result, the topological superconductor has Z4\mathbb{Z}_4 topological phases, two which support Majorana bound states and two which do not, in agreement with a prediction based on K-theory classification [K. Shiozaki et al., Phys. Rev. B 93, 195413 (2016)]. As with the Kitaev chain, the presence of Majorana bound states gives rise to the 4π4\pi-periodic Josephson effect. A random matrix with nonsymmorphic time-reversal symmetry may be block diagonalized, and every individual block has time-reversal symmetry described by one of the Gaussian orthogonal, unitary or symplectic ensembles. We show how this is manifested in the energy level statistics of a random system in the Z4\mathbb{Z}_4 class as the spatial period of the nonsymmorphic symmetry is varied from much less than to of the order of the system size.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2404.07633,
  title  = {One-dimensional $\mathbb{Z}_4$ topological superconductor},
  author = {Max Tymczyszyn and Edward McCann},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.07633},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

8 pages, 4 figures, plus supplementary 11 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T15:50:56.713Z