Department of Physics, University of Illinois, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801-3080, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Jul 19;108(29):11810-4. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1101469108. Epub 2011 Jul 5.
In recent years there has been an intensive search for Majorana fermion states in condensed matter systems. Predicted to be localized on cores of vortices in certain nonconventional superconductors, their presence is known to render the exchange statistics of bulk vortices non-abelian. Here we study the equations governing the dynamics of phase solitons (fluxons) in a Josephson junction in a topological superconductor. We show that the fluxon will bind a localized zero energy Majorana mode and will consequently behave as a non-abelian anyon. The low mass of the fluxon, as well as its experimentally observed quantum mechanical wave-like nature, will make it a suitable candidate for vortex interferometry experiments demonstrating non-abelian statistics. We suggest two experiments that may reveal the presence of the zero mode carried by the fluxon. Specific experimental realizations will be discussed as well.
近年来，人们一直在凝聚态系统中寻找马约拉纳费米子态。这些费米子被预测存在于某些非常规超导体的涡旋核中，它们的存在使得体涡旋的交换统计量呈现非阿贝尔特性。在这里，我们研究了在拓扑超导体中的约瑟夫森结中相位孤子（磁通）动力学的方程。我们表明，磁通将束缚在一个局域的零能马约拉纳模上，并因此表现为一个非阿贝尔任意子。磁通的低质量以及其实验观测到的量子力学波状性质，将使其成为一种适合于证明非阿贝尔统计的涡旋干涉实验的候选者。我们提出了两个可能揭示磁通携带的零模式的实验。我们还将讨论具体的实验实现。
