arXiv subjects

Silas Hoffman

Publications and source records attributed to Silas Hoffman.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Majorana Zero Modes Emulated in a Magnetic Molecule Chain

We propose molecular magnets as a platform to emulate Majorana zero modes (MZMs). Using a quantum chemistry approach, we identify several candidates and predict a Co trimer to have sufficient properties to host MZMs. Parameters of the quantum spin Hamiltonian describing the three coupled magnetic centers are extracted from ab initio calculations. The low-energy subspace of this material realizes an effective anisotropic spin-1/2 chain. We show the presence of MZMs in this system and find that their response to electronic paramagnetic resonance provides an experimentally realizable signature.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Universal quantum operation of spin-3/2 Blume-Capel chains

We propose a logical qubit based on the Blume-Capel model: a higher spin generalization of the Ising chain and which allows for an on-site anisotropy preserving rotational invariance around the Ising axis. We show that such a spin-3/2 Blume-Capel model can also support localized Majorana bound states at the ends of the chain. Inspired by known braiding protocols of these Majorana bound states, upon appropriate manipulation of the system parameters, we demonstrate a set of universal gate operations which act on qubits encoded in the doubly degenerate ground states of the chain.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Tuning interactions between spins in a superconductor

Novel many-body and topological electronic phases can be created in assemblies of interacting spins coupled to a superconductor, such as one-dimensional topological superconductors with Majorana zero modes (MZMs) at their ends. Understanding and controlling interactions between spins and the emergent band structure of the in-gap Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) states they induce in a superconductor are fundamental for engineering such phases. Here, by precisely positioning magnetic adatoms with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM), we demonstrate both the tunability of exchange interaction between spins and precise control of the hybridization of YSR states they induce on the surface of a bismuth (Bi) thin film that is made superconducting with the proximity effect. In this platform, depending on the separation of spins, the interplay between Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction, spin-orbit coupling, and surface magnetic anisotropy stabilizes different types of spin alignments. Using high-resolution STM spectroscopy at millikelvin temperatures, we probe these spin alignments through monitoring the spin-induced YSR states and their energy splitting. Such measurements also reveal a quantum phase transition between the ground states with different electron number parity for a pair of spins in a superconductor tuned by their separation. Experiments on larger assemblies show that spin-spin interactions can be mediated in a superconductor over long distances. Our results show that controlling hybridization of the YSR states in this platform provides the possibility of engineering the band structure of such states for creating topological phases.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2021

Majorana Bound States Induced by Antiferromagnetic Skyrmion Textures

Majorana bound states are zero-energy states predicted to emerge in topological superconductors and intense efforts seeking a definitive proof of their observation are still ongoing. A standard route to realize them involves antagonistic orders: a superconductor in proximity to a ferromagnet. Here we show this issue can be resolved using antiferromagnetic rather than ferromagnetic order. We propose to use a chain of antiferromagnetic skyrmions, in an otherwise collinear antiferromagnet, coupled to a bulk conventional superconductor as a novel platform capable of supporting Majorana bound states that are robust against disorder. Crucially, the collinear antiferromagnetic region neither suppresses superconductivity nor induces topological superconductivity, thus allowing for Majorana bound states localized at the ends of the chain. Our model introduces a new class of systems where topological superconductivity can be induced by editing antiferromagnetic textures rather than locally tuning material parameters, opening avenues for the conclusive observation of Majorana bound states.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Theory of topological spin Josephson junctions

We study the spin transport through a 1D quantum Ising-XY-Ising spin link that emulates a topological superconducting-normal-superconducting structure via Jordan-Wigner (JW) transformation. We calculate, both analytically and numerically, the spectrum of spin Andreev bound states and the resulting $\mathbb{Z}_2$ fractional spin Josephson effect (JE) pertaining to the emerging Majorana JW fermions. Deep in the topological regime, we identify an effective time-reversal symmetry that leads to $\mathbb{Z}_4$ fractional spin JE in the $\textit{presence}$ of interactions within the junction. Moreover, we uncover a hidden inversion time-reversal symmetry that protects the $\mathbb{Z}_4$ periodicity in chains with an odd number of spins, even in the $\textit{absence}$ of interactions. We also analyze the entanglement between pairs of spins by evaluating the concurrence in the presence of spin current and highlight the effects of the JW Majorana states. We propose to use a microwave cavity setup for detecting the aforementioned JEs by dispersive readout methods and show that, surprisingly, the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ periodicity is immune to $\textit{any}$ local magnetic perturbations. Our results are relevant for a plethora of spin systems, such as trapped ions, photonic lattices, electron spins in quantum dots, or magnetic impurities on surfaces.

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arXiv2020

Yu-Shiba-Rusinov States and Ordering of Magnetic Impurities Near the Boundary of a Superconducting Nanowire

We theoretically study the spectrum induced by one and two magnetic impurities near the boundary of a one-dimensional nanowire in proximity to a conventional $s$-wave superconductor and extract the ground state magnetic configuration. We show that the energies of the subgap states, supported by the magnetic impurities, are strongly affected by the boundary for distances less than the superconducting coherence length. In particular, when the impurity is moved towards the boundary, multiple quantum phase transitions periodically occur in which the parity of the superconducting condensate oscillates between even and odd. We find that the magnetic ground state configuration of two magnetic impurities depends not only on the distance between them but also explicitly on their distance away from the boundary of the nanowire. As a consequence, the magnetic ground state can switch from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic while keeping the inter-impurity distance unaltered by simultaneously moving both impurities away from the boundary. The ground state magnetic configuration of two impurities is found analytically in the weak coupling regime and exactly for an arbitrary impurity coupling strength using numerical tight-binding simulations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Majorana Fermions in Magnetic Chains

Majorana fermions have recently garnered a great attention outside the field of particle physics, in condensed matter physics. In contrast to their particle physics counterparts, Majorana fermions are zero energy, chargeless, spinless, composite quasiparticles, residing at the boundaries of so-called topological superconductors. Furthermore, in opposition to any particles in the standard model, Majorana fermions in solid-state systems obey non-Abelian exchange statistics that make them attractive candidates for decoherence-free implementations of quantum computers. In this review, we report on the recent advances to realize synthetic topological superconductors supporting Majorana fermions with an emphasis on chains of magnetic impurities on the surface of superconductors. After outlining the theoretical underpinning responsible for the formation of Majorana fermions, we report on the subsequent experimental efforts to build topological superconductors and the resulting evidence in favor of Majorana fermions, focusing on scanning tunneling microscopy and the hunt for zero-bias peaks in the measured current. We conclude by summarizing the open questions in the field and propose possible experimental measurements to answer them.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2019

Entangling Spins in Double Quantum Dots and Majorana Bound States

We study the coupling between a singlet-triplet qubit realized in a double quantum dot to a topological qubit realized by spatially well-separated Majorana bound states. We demonstrate that the singlet-triplet qubit can be leveraged for readout of the topological qubit and for supplementing the gate operations that cannot be performed by braiding of Majorana bound states. Furthermore, we extend our setup to a network of singlet-triplet and topological hybrid qubits that paves the way to scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Superfluid Transport in Quantum Spin Chains

Spin superfluids enable long-distance spin transport through classical ferromagnets by developing topologically stable magnetic textures. For small spins at low dimensions, however, the topological protection suffers from strong quantum fluctuations. We study the remanence of spin superfluidity inherited from the classical magnet by considering the two-terminal spin transport through a finite spin-1/2 magnetic chain with planar exchange. By fermionizing the system, we recast the spin-transport problem in terms of quasiparticle transmission through a superconducting region. We show that the topological underpinnings of a semiclassical spin superfluid relate to the topological superconductivity in the fermionic representation. In particular, we find an efficient spin transmission through the magnetic region of a characteristic resonant length, which can be related to the properties of the boundary Majorana zero modes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Topological Phase Detection in Rashba Nanowires with a Quantum Dot

We study theoretically the detection of the topological phase transition occurring in Rashba nanowires with proximity-induced superconductivity using a quantum dot. The bulk states lowest in energy of such a nanowire have a spin polarization parallel or antiparallel to the applied magnetic field in the topological or trivial phase, respectively. We show that this property can be probed by the quantum dot created at the end of the nanowire by external gates. By tuning one of the two spin-split levels of the quantum dot to be in resonance with nanowire bulk states, one can detect the spin polarization of the lowest band via transport measurement. This allows one to determine the topological phase of the Rashba nanowire independently of the presence of Majorana bound states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Quantum Dynamics of Skyrmions in Chiral Magnets

We study the quantum propagation of a Skyrmion in chiral magnetic insulators by generalizing the micromagnetic equations of motion to a finite-temperature path integral formalism, using field theoretic tools. Promoting the center of the Skyrmion to a dynamic quantity, the fluctuations around the Skyrmionic configuration give rise to a time-dependent damping of the Skyrmion motion. From the frequency dependence of the damping kernel, we are able to identify the Skyrmion mass, thus providing a microscopic description of the kinematic properties of Skyrmions. When defects are present or a magnetic trap is applied, the Skyrmion mass acquires a finite value proportional to the effective spin, even at vanishingly small temperature. We demonstrate that a Skyrmion in a confined geometry provided by a magnetic trap behaves as a massive particle owing to its quasi-one-dimensional confinement. An additional quantum mass term is predicted, independent of the effective spin, with an explicit temperature dependence which remains finite even at zero temperature.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Low-field Topological Threshold in Majorana Double Nanowires

A hard proximity-induced superconducting gap has recently been observed in semiconductor nanowire systems at low magnetic fields. However, in the topological regime at high magnetic fields, a soft gap emerges and represents a fundamental obstacle to topologically protected quantum information processing with Majorana bound states. Here we show that in a setup of double Rashba nanowires that are coupled to an s-wave superconductor and subjected to an external magnetic field along the wires, the topological threshold can be significantly reduced by the destructive interference of direct and crossed-Andreev pairing in this setup, precisely down to the magnetic field regime in which current experimental technology allows for a hard superconducting gap. We also show that the resulting Majorana bound states exhibit sufficiently short localization lengths, which makes them ideal candidates for future braiding experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Spin-dependent coupling between quantum dots and topological quantum wires

Considering Rashba quantum wires with a proximity-induced superconducting gap as physical realizations of Majorana fermions and quantum dots, we calculate the overlap of the Majorana wave functions with the local wave functions on the dot. We determine the spin-dependent tunneling amplitudes between these two localized states and show that we can tune into a fully spin polarized tunneling regime by changing the distance between dot and Majorana fermion. Upon directly applying this to the tunneling model Hamiltonian, we calculate the effective magnetic field on the quantum dot flanked by two Majorana fermions. The direction of the induced magnetic field on the dot depends on the occupation of the nonlocal fermion formed from the two Majorana end states which can be used as a readout for such a Majorana qubit.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Detecting Topological Superconductivity with $φ_{0}$ Josephson Junctions

The interplay of superconductivity, magnetic fields, and spin-orbit interaction lies at the heart of topological superconductivity. Remarkably, the recent experimental discovery of $φ_{0}$ Josephson junctions by Szombati et al., Nat. Phys. 12, 568 (2016), characterized by a finite phase offset in the supercurrent, require the same ingredients as topological superconductors, which suggests a profound connection between these two distinct phenomena. Here, we theoretically show that a quantum dot $φ_{0}$ Josephson junction can serve as a new qualitative indicator for topological superconductivity: Microscopically, we find that the phase shift in a junction of $s-$wave superconductors is due to the spin-orbit induced mixing of singly occupied states on the qantum dot, while for a topological superconductor junction it is due to singlet-triplet mixing. Because of this important difference, when the spin-orbit vector of the quantum dot and the external Zeeman field are orthogonal, the $s$-wave superconductors form a $π$ Josephson junction while the topological superconductors have a finite offset $φ_{0}$ by which topological superconductivity can be distinguished from conventional superconductivity. Our prediction can be immediately tested in nanowire systems currently used for Majorana fermion experiments and thus offers a new and realistic approach for detecting topological bound states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Universal Quantum Computation with Hybrid Spin-Majorana Qubits

We theoretically propose a set of universal quantum gates acting on a hybrid qubit formed by coupling a quantum dot spin qubit and Majorana fermion qubit. First, we consider a quantum dot tunnel-coupled to two topological superconductors. The effective spin-Majorana exchange facilitates a hybrid CNOT gate for which either qubit can be the control or target. The second setup is a modular scalable network of topological superconductors and quantum dots. As a result of the exchange interaction between adjacent spin qubits, a CNOT gate is implemented that acts on neighboring Majorana qubits, and eliminates the necessity of inter-qubit braiding. In both setups the spin-Majorana exchange interaction allows for a phase gate, acting on either the spin or the Majorana qubit, and for a SWAP or hybrid SWAP gate which is sufficient for universal quantum computation without projective measurements.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Topological Phases of Inhomogeneous Superconductivity

We theoretically consider the effect of a spatially periodic modulation of the superconducting order parameter on the formation of Majorana fermions induced by a one-dimensional system with magnetic impurities brought into close proximity to an $s$-wave superconductor. When the magnetic exchange energy is larger than the inter-impurity electron hopping we model the effective system as a chain of coupled Shiba states. While in the opposite regime, the effective system is accurately described by a quantum wire model. Upon including a spatially modulated superconducting pairing, we find, for sufficiently large magnetic exchange energy, the system is able to support a single pair of Majorana fermions with one Majorana fermion on the left end of the system and one on the right end. When the modulation of superconductivity is large compared to the magnetic exchange energy, the Shiba chain returns to a trivially gapped regime while the quantum wire enters a new topological phase capable of supporting two pairs of Majorana fermions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Superconducting Gap Renormalization around two Magnetic Impurities: From Shiba to Andreev Bound States

We study the renormalization of the gap of an s-wave superconductor in the presence of two magnetic impurities. For weakly bound Shiba states, we analytically calculate the part of the gap renormalization that is sensitive to the relative orientation of the two impurity spins. For impurities with a strong exchange coupling to the conduction electrons, we solve the gap equation self-consistently by numerics and find that the sub-gap Shiba state turns into a supra-gap Andreev state when the local gap parameter changes sign under the impurities.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Impurity Induced Quantum Phase Transitions and Magnetic Order in Conventional Superconductors: Competition between Bound and Quasiparticle states

We theoretically study bound states generated by magnetic impurities within conventional $s$-wave superconductors, both analytically and numerically. In determining the effect of the hybridization of two such bound states on the energy spectrum as a function of magnetic exchange coupling, relative angle of magnetization, and distance between impurities, we find that quantum phase transitions can be modulated by each of these parameters. Accompanying such transitions, there is a change in the preferred spin configuration of the impurities. Although the interaction between the impurity spins is overwhelmingly dominated by the quasiparticle contribution, the ground state of the system is determined by the bound state energies. Self-consistently calculating the superconducting order parameter, we find a discontinuity when the system undergoes a quantum phase transition as indicated by the bound state energies.

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