Screening Clouds and Majorana Fermions
arXiv:1404.0047 · doi:10.1007/s10955-014-1056-1
Abstract
Ken Wilson developed the Numerical Renormalization Group technique which greatly enhanced our understanding of the Kondo effect and other quantum impurity problems. Wilson's NRG also inspired Philippe Nozieres to propose the idea of a large "Kondo screening cloud". While much theoretical evidence has accumulated for this idea it has remained somewhat controversial and has not yet been confirmed experimentally. Recently a new possibility for observing an analogous crossover length scale has emerged, involving a Majorana fermion localized at the interface between a topological superconductor quantum wire and a normal wire. We give an overview of this topic both with and without interactions included in the normal wire.
for a special issue of J. Stat. Phys. in memory of Kenneth G. Wilson. More discussion of connection with previous results and 1 new figure added; other figures improved
References in corpus (4)
- Signatures of Majorana fermions in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire devices
- Majorana Fermions and a Topological Phase Transition in Semiconductor-Superconductor Heterostructures
- Fermion-parity anomaly of the critical supercurrent in the quantum spin-Hall effect
- Josephson current through a long quantum wire