Annihilation of Colliding Bogoliubov Quasiparticles Reveals their Majorana Nature
Abstract
The single-particle excitations of a superconductor are coherent superpositions of electrons and holes near the Fermi level, called Bogoliubov quasiparticles. They are Majorana fermions, meaning that pairs of quasiparticles can annihilate. We calculate the annihilation probability at a beam splitter for chiral quantum Hall edge states, obtaining a 1±cosϕ dependence on the phase difference ϕ of the superconductors from which the excitations originated (with the ± sign distinguishing singlet and triplet pairing). This provides for a nonlocal measurement of the superconducting phase in the absence of any supercurrent.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- February 2014
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.070604
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1312.2001
- Bibcode:
- 2014PhRvL.112g0604B
- Keywords:
-
- 05.60.Gg;
- 03.75.Lm;
- 74.45.+c;
- 74.78.Na;
- Quantum transport;
- Tunneling Josephson effect Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials solitons vortices and topological excitations;
- Proximity effects;
- Andreev effect;
- SN and SNS junctions;
- Mesoscopic and nanoscale systems;
- Condensed Matter - Superconductivity;
- Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
- E-Print:
- 6 pages, 3 figures