Topological qubits in graphene-like systems

ORAL

Abstract

The fermion-doubling problem can be an obstacle to getting half-a-qubit in two-dimensional fermionic tight-binding models in the form of Majorana zero modes bound to the core of superconducting vortices. We argue that the number of such Majorana zero modes is determined by a $Z_{2} \times Z_{2}$ topological charge for a family of two-dimensional fermionic tight-binding models ranging from noncentrosymmetric materials to graphene. This charge depends on the dimension of the representation (i.e., the number of species of Dirac fermions -- where the doubling problem enters) and the parity of the Chern number induced by breaking time-reversal symmetry. We show that in graphene there are as many as 10 order parameters that can be used in groups of 4 to change the topological number from even to odd.

Authors

  • Luiz Santos

    Dept. of Physics, Harvard University

  • Shinsei Ryu

    Dept. of Physics, U.C. Berkeley, UC Berkeley, University of California, Berkeley

  • Claudio Chamon

    Boston University, Physics Dept., Boston University

  • Christopher Mudry

    CMT group, Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland, Paul Scherrer Institut