First Order Topological Phase Transitions and Disorder Induced Majorana Modes in Interacting Fermion Chains

Abstract

Using a combination of the mean-field Bogoliubov deGennes (BdG) approach and the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) method, we discover first order topological transitions between topological superconducting and trivial insulating phases in a sawtooth lattice of inter-site attractive fermions. Topological characterization of different phases is achieved in terms of winding numbers, Majorana edge modes and entanglement spectra. By studying the effect of disorder on the first order topological phase transitions, we establish the disorder-induced topological phase coexistence as a mechanism for generating a finite density of Majorana particles.

Supplemental material included

References in corpus (18)

• Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Gases
• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Topological Photonics
• Evidence of Majorana fermions in an Al - InAs nanowire topological superconductor
• Topological Acoustics
• Topological Quantum Matter with Ultracold Gases in Optical Lattices
• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topologically Invariant Chern Numbers
• Topological properties of linear circuit lattices
• Topological invariants and interacting one-dimensional fermionic systems
• First order character and observable signatures of topological quantum phase transitions
• A model for the phase separation controlled by doping and the internal chemical pressure in different cuprate superconductors
• Majorana modes and $p$-wave superfluids for fermionic atoms in optical lattices
• Tomonaga-Luttinger parameters for doped Mott insulators
• Interaction effects on 1D fermionic symmetry protected topological phases
• Tenfold Topology of Crystals: Unified classification of crystalline topological insulators and superconductors
• Exact solutions and topological phase diagram in interacting dimerized Kitaev topological superconductors
• Mechanical Graphene
• Phase Diagram of the $t$--$U$--$V_1$--$V_2$ Model at Quarter Filling