We review the properties of Majorana fermions in particle physics and point out that Majorana modes in solid state systems are significantly different. The key reason is the concept of anti-particle in solid state sys...We review the properties of Majorana fermions in particle physics and point out that Majorana modes in solid state systems are significantly different. The key reason is the concept of anti-particle in solid state systems is different from its counterpart in particle physics. We define Majorana modes as the eigenstates of Majorana operators and find that they can exist both at edges and in the bulk. According to our definition, only one single Majorana mode can exist in a system no matter at edges or in the bulk. Kitaev＇s spinless p-wave superconductor is used to illustrate our results and the dynamical behavior of the Majorana modes.展开更多
基金Q.Z. thanks Erhai Zhao for discussions on the Kitaev chain and the partial support by AFOSR FA9550-12-1- 0079 as a visiting scholar at George Mason University. This work was supported by the NationM Basic Research Program of China （Grants No. 2013CB921903） and the National Natural Science Foundation of China （Grants Nos. 11334001 and 11429402）.
文摘We review the properties of Majorana fermions in particle physics and point out that Majorana modes in solid state systems are significantly different. The key reason is the concept of anti-particle in solid state systems is different from its counterpart in particle physics. We define Majorana modes as the eigenstates of Majorana operators and find that they can exist both at edges and in the bulk. According to our definition, only one single Majorana mode can exist in a system no matter at edges or in the bulk. Kitaev＇s spinless p-wave superconductor is used to illustrate our results and the dynamical behavior of the Majorana modes.
