Finite temperature effects on Majorana bound states in chiral $p$-wave superconductors

Abstract

We study Majorana fermions bound to vortex cores in a chiral $p$-wave superconductor at temperatures non-negligible compared to the superconducting gap. Thermal occupation of Caroli de Gennes-Matricon states, below the full gap, causes the free energy difference between the two fermionic parity sectors to decay algebraically with increasing temperature. The power law acquires an additional factor of $T^{-1}$ for each bound state thermally excited. The zero-temperature result is exponentially recovered well below the minigap (lowest-lying CdGM level). Our results suggest that temperatures larger than the minigap may not be disastrous for topological quantum computation. We discuss the prospect of precision measurements of pinning forces on vortices as a readout scheme for Majorana qubits.

11 pages, 8 figures; submission to SciPost

References in corpus (17)

• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator
• Signatures of Majorana fermions in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire devices
• Classification of topological insulators and superconductors in three spatial dimensions
• Observation of Majorana Fermions in Ferromagnetic Atomic Chains on a Superconductor
• Scale-Invariant Dissipationless Chiral Transport in Magnetic Topological Insulators beyond the Two-Dimensional Limit
• Electrically detected interferometry of Majorana fermions in a topological insulator
• Precise quantization of anomalous Hall effect near zero magnetic field
• Majorana qubit decoherence by quasiparticle poisoning
• Splitting of Majorana modes due to intervortex tunneling in a p + ip superconductor
• Fermion-parity anomaly of the critical supercurrent in the quantum spin-Hall effect
• Zero modes of two-dimensional chiral p-wave superconductors
• Tunneling of anyonic Majorana excitations in topological superconductors
• Controlled Manipulation of Individual Vortices in a Superconductor
• Optical Manipulation of Single Flux Quanta
• Majorana fermions of a two-dimensional Px+iPy superconductor
• Structure and consequences of vortex-core states in p-wave superfluids

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Degeneracy lifting of Majorana bound states due to electron-phonon interactions
• Statistical Majorana Bound State Spectroscopy
• Geometry-independent tight-binding method for massless Dirac fermions in two dimensions
• Influence of disorder on antidot vortex Majorana states in 3D topological insulators