arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jurriaan Wouters.
We introduce a frustration-free, one-dimensional model of spinless fermions with hopping, p-wave superconducting pairing and alternating chemical potentials. The model possesses two exactly degenerate ground states even for finite system sizes. We present analytical results for the strong Majorana zero modes, the phase diagram and the topological order. Furthermore, we generalise our results to include interactions.
We apply Witten's conjugation argument [Nucl. Phys. B 202, 253 (1982)] to spin chains, where it allows us to derive frustration-free systems and their exact ground states from known results. We particularly focus on $\mathbb{Z}_p$-symmetric models, with the Kitaev and Peschel--Emery line of the axial next-nearest neighbour Ising (ANNNI) chain being the simplest examples. The approach allows us to treat two $\mathbb{Z}_3$-invariant frustration-free parafermion chains, recently derived by Iemini et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 170402 (2017)] and Mahyaeh and Ardonne [Phys. Rev. B 98, 245104 (2018)], respectively, in a unified framework. We derive several other frustration-free models and their exact ground states, including $\mathbb{Z}_4$- and $\mathbb{Z}_6$-symmetric generalisations of the frustration-free ANNNI chain.
Ramsey's theorem, concerning the guarantee of certain monochromatic patterns in large enough edge-coloured complete graphs, is a fundamental result in combinatorial mathematics. In this work, we highlight the connection between this abstract setting and a statistical physics problem. Specifically, we design a classical Hamiltonian that favours configurations in a way to establish lower bounds on Ramsey numbers. As a proof of principle we then use Monte Carlo methods to obtain such lower bounds, finding rough agreement with known literature values in a few cases we investigated. We discuss numerical limitations of our approach and indicate a path towards the treatment of larger graph sizes.
We study the phase diagram of an extended parafermion chain, which, in addition to terms coupling parafermions on neighbouring sites, also possesses terms involving four sites. Via a Fradkin--Kadanoff transformation the parafermion chain is shown to be equivalent to the non-chiral $\mathbb{Z}_3$ axial next-nearest neighbour Potts model. We discuss a possible experimental realisation using hetero-nanostructures. The phase diagram contains several gapped phases, including a topological phase where the system possesses three (nearly) degenerate ground states, and a gapless Luttinger-liquid phase.
We study a tight binding model of $\mathbb{Z}_3$-Fock parafermions with single-particle and pair-hopping terms. The phase diagram has four different phases: a gapped phase, a gapless phase with central charge $c=2$, and two gapless phases with central charge $c=1$. We characterise each phase by analysing the energy gap, entanglement entropy and different correlation functions. The numerical simulations are complemented by analytical arguments.