arXiv subjects

Haining Pan

Publications and source records attributed to Haining Pan.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Local and nonlocal stochastic control of quantum chaos: Measurement- and control-induced criticality

We theoretically study the topology of the phase diagram of a family of quantum models inspired by the classical Bernoulli map under stochastic control. The quantum models inherit a control-induced phase transition from the classical model and also manifest an entanglement phase transition intrinsic to the quantum setting. This measurement-induced phase transition has been shown in various settings to either coincide or split off from the control transition, but a systematic understanding of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the two transitions to coincide in this case has so far been lacking. In this work, we generalize the control map to allow for either local or global control action. While this does not affect the classical aspects of the control transition that is described by a random walk, it significantly influences the quantum dynamics, leading to the universality class of the measurement-induced transition being dependent on the locality of the control operation. In the presence of a global control map, the two transitions coincide and the control-induced phase transition dominates the measurement-induced phase transition. Contrarily, the two transitions split in the presence of the local control map or additional projective measurements and generically take on distinct universality classes. For local control, the measurement-induced phase transition recovers the Haar logarithmic conformal field theory universality class found in feedback-free models. However, for global control, a novel universality class with correlation length exponent $ν\approx 0.7$ emerges from the interplay of control and projective measurements. This work provides a more refined understanding of the relationship between the control- and measurement-induced phase transitions.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Disordered Majorana nanowires: Studying disorder without any disorder

The interplay of disorder and short finite wire length is the crucial physics hindering progress in the semiconductor-superconductor nanowire platform for realizing non-Abelian Majorana zero modes (MZM). Disorder effectively segments the nanowire into isolated patches of quantum dots (QD) which act as subgap Andreev bound states often mimicking MZMs. In this work, we propose and develop a new theoretical approach to model disorder, effectively a spatially varying effective mass model, which does not rely on incorporating unknown microscopic details of disorder into the Hamiltonian. This model effectively segments the wire into multiple QDs, characterized by highly enhanced effective mass at impurity sites leading to the segmentation of the wire into effective random QDs. We find that this model can reproduce disorder physics, providing a crystal clear way to understand the effects of disorder by comparing the mean free path to the superconducting coherence length. In addition, this model allows precise control over the disorder regime, enabling us to evaluate the reliability of topological invariants (TI) in predicting MZMs. We find that TIs alone may yield a significant false positive rate as indicators for topology in the actual wire with increasing disorder strength. Therefore, we propose new indicators to characterize the spatial distribution of the zero-energy state, emphasizing the key necessity for isolated MZMs localized at wire ends. Employing this set of new indicators for stringent characterizations, we explore their experimental relevance to the measured differential conductance spectra. Our findings highlight the critical role of isolated localized states, beyond the TI, in identifying topological MZMs. We believe that this approach is a powerful tool for studying realistic Majorana nanowires where disorder and short wire length obfuscate the underlying topological physics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Disorder effects on the so-called Andreev band in Majorana nanowires

We comment on a recent publication Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 207001 (2023), pointing out that the periodic model for the superconducting gap and/or the spin splitting used by the authors is artificial and does not apply to any real systems. In addition, we show that the resulting Andreev band introduced by this artificial and unrealistic periodicity is suppressed by the potential disorder invariably present in all experimental systems. The results of this model are therefore contrived and do not apply to any experimental system.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Realizing a tunable honeycomb lattice in ABBA-stacked twisted double bilayer WSe$_2$

The ideal honeycomb lattice, featuring sublattice and SU(2) spin rotation symmetries, is a fundamental model for investigating quantum matters with topology and correlations. With the rise of the moiré-based design of model systems, realizing a tunable and symmetric honeycomb lattice system with a narrow bandwidth can open access to new phases and insights. We propose the ABBA-stacked twisted double bilayer WSe$_2$ as a realistic and tunable platform for reaching this goal. Adjusting the twist angle allows the bandwidth and the ratio between hopping parameters of different ranges to be tuned. Moreover, the system's small bandwidth and spin rotation symmetry enable effective control of the electronic structure through an in-plane magnetic field. We construct an extended Hubbard model for the system to demonstrate this tunability and explore possible ordered phases using the Hartree-Fock approximation. We find that at a hole filling of $ν= 2$ (two holes per moiré unit cell), an in-plane magnetic field of a few Tesla can ``dope" the system from a semimetal to a metal. Interactions then drive an instability towards a canted antiferromagnetic insulator ground state. Additionally, we observe a competing insulating phase with sublattice charge polarization. Finally, we discuss the experimental signatures of these novel insulating phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Nematic excitonic insulator in transition metal dichalcogenide moiré heterobilayers

We study the effect of inter-electron Coulomb interactions on the displacement field induced topological phase transition in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) moiré heterobilayers. We find a nematic excitonic insulator (NEI) phase that breaks the moiré superlattice's three-fold rotational symmetry and preempts the topological phase transition in both AA and AB stacked heterobilayers when the interlayer tunneling is weak, or when the Coulomb interaction is not strongly screened. The nematicity originates from the frustration between the nontrivial spatial structure of the interlayer tunneling, which is crucial to the existence of the topological Chern band, and the interlayer coherence induced by the Coulomb interaction that favors uniformity in layer pseudo-spin orientations. We construct a unified effective two-band model that captures the physics near the band inversion and applies to both AA and AB stacked heterobilayers. Within the two-band model, the competition between the NEI phase and the Chern insulator phase can be understood as the switching of the energetic order between the $s$-wave and the $p$-wave excitons upon increasing the interlayer tunneling.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Fusion protocol for Majorana modes in coupled quantum dots

In a recent breakthrough experiment [Nature (London) 614, 445 (2023)], signatures of Majorana zero modes have been observed in tunnel spectroscopy for a minimal Kitaev chain constructed from coupled quantum dots. However, as Ising anyons, Majoranas' most fundamental property of non-Abelian statistics is yet to be detected. Moreover, the minimal Kitaev chain is qualitatively different from topological superconductors in that it supports Majoranas only at a sweet spot. Therefore, it is not obvious whether non-Abelian characteristics such as braiding and fusion can be demonstrated in this platform with a reasonable level of robustness. In this work, we theoretically propose a protocol for detecting the Majorana fusion rules in an artificial Kitaev chain consisting of four quantum dots. In contrast with the previous proposals for semiconductor-superconductor hybrid nanowire platforms, here we do not rely on mesoscopic superconducting islands, which are difficult to implement in quantum dot chains. To show the robustness of the fusion protocol, we discuss the effects of three types of realistic imperfections on the fusion outcomes, e.g., diabatic errors, dephasing errors, and calibration errors. We also propose a fermion parity readout scheme using quantum capacitance. Our work will shed light on future experiments on detecting the non-Abelian properties of Majorana modes in a quantum dot chain.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Density of states, transport, and topology in disordered Majorana nanowires

Motivated by a recent breakthrough transport experiment [Phys. Rev. B.107.245423 (2023)] in Majorana nanowires, we theoretically investigate local and nonlocal transport in Majorana nanowires in various disorder regimes, correlating the transport properties with the corresponding local and total density of states as well as various topological diagnostics. We find three distinct disorder regimes, with weak (strong) disorder regimes manifesting (not manifesting) topological superconductivity with clear end Majorana zero modes for longer (but not necessarily for shorter) wires. The intermediate disorder regime is both interesting and challenging because the topology depends on many details in addition to the strength of disorder, such as the precise disorder configuration and the wire length. The intermediate disorder regime often manifests multiple effective transitions between topological and nontopological phases as a function of system parameters (e.g., the Zeeman field), and is consistent with the recent Microsoft experiment reflecting small topological gaps and narrow topological regimes in the parameter space.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Majorana nanowires, Kitaev chains, and spin models

Motivated by the fact that the idealized Kitaev chain toy model and the experimental semiconductor-superconductor Majorana nanowire can both host the Majorana zero modes, we theoretically investigate the question to what extent the two models are equivalent or similar, using the perspective of the corresponding dual spin models for both. We start with the duality between the Kitaev chain and the transverse-field XY spin model through the Jordan-Wigner transformation with the goal of establishing the connection between the Kitaev chain and the nanowire. By applying the Jordan-Wigner transformation to the nanowire, we find that the corresponding bosonic spin model is a generalized spin cluster model, containing 3-spin and 4-spin terms, with staggered couplings. By projecting out the upper band of the bare semiconductor with higher energy, we obtain an effective low-energy spinless system from the spinful nanowire system deep in the topological regime. Finally, we establish the connection between the Kitaev chain and Majorana nanowire by showing that the spinless Kitaev chain can be viewed as the first-order approximation of the spinful Majorana nanowire deep in the topological regime.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Random matrix theory for the robustness, quantization, and end-to-end correlation of zero-bias conductance peaks in a class D ensemble

We develop a general theory to study strong random quenched disorder effects in systems of experimental relevance in the search for Majorana zero modes (MZM) in topological superconductors. Using the random matrix theory in a class D ensemble, we simulate the transport properties of random quantum dots by attaching leads, and calculating the differential conductance in the $S$ matrix formalism. To add the concept of the length to the random system so that disordered Majorana nanowires can be simulated by the random matrix theory, we generalize the model of a single quantum dot to a chain of quantum dots by analogy with the superconductor-semiconductor (SC-SM) nanowire Majorana platform. We first define a new concept, the robustness of zero-bias conductance peaks (ZBCPs), in terms of an effective random Hamiltonian considering the self-energy of leads. We then study the joint distribution for the robustness and ZBCPs, and find a strong correlation that the ZBCP with stronger robustness is also prone to carry a larger conductance peak near $2e^2/h$. This trend is more prominent in shorter chains than in longer chains. This is consistent with experimentally observed ZBCPs associated with disorder-induced trivial Andreev bound states (the so-called ugly ZBCPs). Finally, we study the end-to-end correlation of the disorder-induced ZBCPs from two leads by calculating the normalized mutual information, which estimates the degrees of the correlation arising from the trivial ZBCPs. Our work provides an estimate of several important metrics used in SC-SM experiments to determine the nature of ZBCPs, including the robustness, quantization, and end-to-end correlation of the trivial ZBCPs. Therefore, in order to claim any evidence for MZMs, one must establish the observed ZBCPs to have considerable statistical significance well beyond what we find in this work to exist for the trivial peaks.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Topological Phases in AB-Stacked MoTe$_2$/WSe$_2$: $\mathbb{Z}_2$ Topological Insulators, Chern Insulators, and Topological Charge Density Waves

We present a theory on the quantum phase diagram of AB-stacked MoTe$_2$/WSe$_2$ using a self-consistent Hartree-Fock calculation performed in the plane-wave basis, motivated by the observation of topological states in this system. At filling factor $ν=2$ (two holes per moiré unit cell), Coulomb interaction can stabilize a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological insulator by opening a charge gap. At $ν=1$, the interaction induces three classes of competing states, spin density wave states, an in-plane ferromagnetic state, and a valley polarized state, which undergo first-order phase transitions tuned by an out-of-plane displacement field. The valley polarized state becomes a Chern insulator for certain displacement fields. Moreover, we predict a topological charge density wave forming a honeycomb lattice with ferromagnetism at $ν=2/3$. Future directions on this versatile system hosting a rich set of quantum phases are discussed.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

On-demand large-conductance in trivial zero-bias tunneling peaks in Majorana nanowires

Motivated by recent experiments that report the almost-generic large-conductance peaks without very extensive fine-tuning, we propose an alternative mechanism through direct theoretical simulations that can explain the large zero-bias conductance peaks being generated on-demand in the nontopological regime in Majorana nanowires by satisfying the following three sufficient conditions: (i) strong potential disorder in the bulk of the nanowire, suppressing the topological regime; (ii) strong suppression of the disorder near the nanowire ends connecting to the tunneling leads, perhaps because of screening by the metallic leads and gates; and (iii) low tunnel barrier strength leading to large tunneling amplitude. The third condition is typically achieved experimentally by fine-tuning the tunnel barrier and the first condition is generic in all existing nanowires by virtue of considerable sample disorder induced by unintentional random quenched charged impurities. The second condition is likely to apply to many samples since the disorder potential would be typically screened more strongly at the wire ends because of the large metallic tunnel pads used experimentally. We show that the resultant tunneling conductance manifests large trivial zero-bias peaks almost on demand, and such peaks could be $\sim 2e^2/h$, when appropriately fine-tuned by the tunnel barrier strength and the temperature, as reported experimentally. Our work not only solves the mystery in recent experiments that the observations of the large zero-bias conductance peaks are generic by proposing a theoretically possible mechanism but also explains why these hypothesized conditions are naturally satisfied in experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Interaction range and temperature dependence of symmetry breaking in strongly correlated two-dimensional moiré transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers

We theoretically consider two-dimensional moiré transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) bilayers, which are strongly correlated in the sense that the on-site Coulomb interaction is comparable to or larger than the hopping kinetic energy between the moiré lattice sites. The system accommodates many symmetry-broken ground states both in charge and isospin sectors at various commensurate rational fillings such as 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 2/3, etc. We investigate two complementary important aspects of the dependence of the symmetry breaking on (1) the range of the electron-electron interaction, which can in principle be experimentally controlled by the nearby gates and the dielectric environment, and (2) temperature, which could thermally suppress the symmetry breaking above a critical temperature. Experimental implications of the theory are discussed.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Estimating disorder and its adverse effects in semiconductor Majorana nanowires

We use the available transport measurements in the literature to develop a dataset for the likely amount of disorder in semiconductor (InAs and InSb) materials which are used in fabricating the superconductor-semiconductor nanowire samples in the experimental search for Majorana zero modes. Using the estimated disorder in direct Majorana simulations, we conclude that the current level of disorder in semiconductor Majorana nanowires is at least an order of magnitude higher than that necessary for the emergence of topological Majorana zero modes. In agreement with existing results, we find that our estimated disorder leads to the occasional emergence of trivial zero modes, which can be post-selected and then further fine-tuned by varying system parameters (e.g., tunnel barrier), leading to trivial zero-bias conductance peaks in tunneling spectroscopy with $ \sim 2e^2/h $ magnitude. Most calculated tunnel spectra in these disordered systems, however, manifest essentially no significant features, which is also consistent with the current experimental status, where zero-bias peaks are found only occasionally in some samples under careful fine-tuning.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Interaction-Driven Filling-Induced Metal-Insulator Transitions in 2D Moiré Lattices

Using a realistic band structure for twisted WSe$_2 $ materials, we develop a theory for the interaction-driven correlated insulators to conducting metals transitions through the tuning of the filling factor around commensurate fractional fillings of the moiré unit cell in the 2D honeycomb lattice, focusing on the dominant half-filled Mott insulating state, which exists for both long- and short-range interactions. We find metallic states slightly away from half-filling, as have recently been observed experimentally. We discuss the stabilities and the magnetic properties of the resulting insulating and metallic phases, and comment on their experimental signatures. We also discuss the nature of the correlated insulator states at the rational fractional fillings.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Crossover between trivial zero modes in Majorana nanowires

We consider the superconductor-semiconductor nanowire hybrid Majorana platform ("Majorana nanowire") in the presence of a deterministic spatially slowly varying inhomogeneous chemical potential and a random spatial quenched potential disorder, both of which are known to produce nontopological almost-zero-energy modes mimicking the theoretically predicted topological Majorana zero modes. We study the crossover among these mechanisms by calculating the tunnel conductance while varying the relative strength between inhomogeneous potential and random disorder in a controlled manner. We find that the entire crossover region manifests abundant trivial zero modes, many of which showing the apparent "quantization" of the zero-bias conductance peak at $ 2e^2/h $, with occasional disorder-dominated peaks exceeding $ 2e^2/h $. We present animations of the simulated crossover behavior and discuss experimental implications. Additionally, in order to simulate the realistic disorder in experimental nanowires, we also study in depth the case of disorder arising from random individual static impurities along the wire, and consider crossover associated with such impurity effects. Our results, when compared qualitatively with existing Majorana nanowire experimental results, indicate the dominant role of random disorder in the experiments. It turns out that all three mechanisms may produce trivial zero-bias peaks in the tunnel conductance, and the crossover among these physical mechanisms (i.e., when more than one mechanism is present in the system) is smooth and continuous, making it difficult a priori to conclude which mechanism is dominant in a particular sample just by a casual inspection of the zero-bias conductance peaks.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Disorder effects on Majorana zero modes: Kitaev chain versus semiconductor nanowire

Majorana zero modes in a superconductor-semiconductor nanowire have been extensively studied during the past decade. Disorder remains a serious problem, preventing the definitive observation of topological Majorana bound states. Thus, it is worthwhile to revisit the simple model, the Kitaev chain, and study the effects of weak and strong disorder on the Kitaev chain. By comparing the role of disorder in a Kitaev chain with that in a nanowire, we find that disorder affects both systems but in a nonuniversal manner. In general, disorder has a much stronger effect on the nanowire than the Kitaev chain, particularly for weak to intermediate disorder. For strong disorder, both the Kitaev chain and nanowire manifest random featureless behavior due to universal Anderson localization. Only the vanishing and strong disorder regimes are thus universal, manifesting respectively topological superconductivity and Anderson localization, but the experimentally relevant intermediate disorder regime is nonuniversal with the details dependent on the disorder realization in the system.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Quantized and unquantized zero-bias tunneling conductance peaks in Majorana nanowires: Conductance below and above $ 2e^2/h $

Majorana zero modes can appear at the wire ends of a 1D topological superconductor and manifest themselves as a quantized zero-bias conductance peak in the tunneling spectroscopy of normal-superconductor junctions. However, in superconductor-semiconductor hybrid nanowires, zero-bias conductance peaks may arise owing to topologically trivial mechanisms as well, mimicking the Majorana-induced topological peak in many aspects. In this work, we systematically investigate the characteristics of zero-bias conductance peaks for topological Majorana bound states, trivial quasi-Majorana bound states and low-energy Andreev bound states arising from smooth potential variations, and disorder-induced subgap bound states. Our focus is on the conductance peak value (i.e., equal to, greater than, or less than $2e^2/h$), as well as the robustness (plateau- or spike-like) against the tuning parameters (e.g., the magnetic field and tunneling gate voltage) for zero-bias peaks arising from the different mechanisms. We find that for Majoranas and quasi-Majoranas, the zero-bias peak values are no more than $2e^2/h$, and a quantized conductance plateau forms generically as a function of parameters. By contrast, for conductance peaks due to low-energy Andreev bound states or disorder-induced bound states, the peak values may exceed $2e^2/h$, and a conductance plateau is rarely observed unless through careful postselection and fine-tuning. Our findings should shed light on the interpretation of experimental measurements on the tunneling spectroscopy of normal-superconductor junctions of hybrid Majorana nanowires.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Disorder-induced zero-bias peaks in Majorana nanowires

Focusing specifically on the recently retracted Nature 2018 Zhang et al. work [Zhang et al., Nature (2021)] and the related recently available correctly analyzed data from this Delft experiment [Zhang et al., arXiv:2101.11456 (2021)], we discuss the general problem of confirmation bias in experiments verifying various theoretical topological quantization predictions. We show that the Delft Majorana experiment is most likely dominated by disorder, which produces trivial (but quite sharp and large) zero-bias Andreev tunneling peaks with large conductance $ \sim 2e^2/h $ in the theory, closely mimicking the data. It is possible to misinterpret such disorder-induced zero-bias trivial peaks as the apparent Majorana quantization, as was originally done in 2018 arising from confirmation bias. One characteristic of the disorder-induced trivial peaks is that they manifest little stability as a function of Zeeman field and tunnel barrier, distinguishing their trivial behavior from the expected topological robustness of non-Abelian Majorana zero modes. We also analyze a more recent nanowire experiment [Yu et al., Nature Physics (2021)] which is known to have a huge amount of disorder, showing that such highly disordered nanowires may produce very small above-background trivial peaks with values $ \sim 2e^2/h $.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗