Substantial experimental investigation has provided evidence for spin-triplet pairing in diverse classes of materials and in a variety of artificial heterostructures. One of the fundamental challenges in this framework is how to manipulate the topological behavior of p-wave superconductors (PSC). In this work we investigate the magnetic field response of one-dimensional (1d) PSCs and we focus on the relation between the structure of the Cooper pair spin-configuration and the occurrence of topological phases with an enhanced number N of Majorana fermions per edge. The topological phase diagram, consisting of phases harboring Majorana modes, becomes significantly modified when one tunes the strength of the applied field, the direction of the d-vector and allows for long range hopping amplitudes in the 1d PSC. We find transitions between phases with different number N of Majorana fermions per edge and we show how they can be both induced by a variation of the hopping strength and a spin rotation of d.

Magnetic manipulation of topological states in p-wave superconductors

Mercaldo, Maria Teresa
;
Cuoco, Mario;
2018-01-01

Abstract

Substantial experimental investigation has provided evidence for spin-triplet pairing in diverse classes of materials and in a variety of artificial heterostructures. One of the fundamental challenges in this framework is how to manipulate the topological behavior of p-wave superconductors (PSC). In this work we investigate the magnetic field response of one-dimensional (1d) PSCs and we focus on the relation between the structure of the Cooper pair spin-configuration and the occurrence of topological phases with an enhanced number N of Majorana fermions per edge. The topological phase diagram, consisting of phases harboring Majorana modes, becomes significantly modified when one tunes the strength of the applied field, the direction of the d-vector and allows for long range hopping amplitudes in the 1d PSC. We find transitions between phases with different number N of Majorana fermions per edge and we show how they can be both induced by a variation of the hopping strength and a spin rotation of d.
2018
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11386/4713158
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