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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Unpaired Majorana fermions in quantum wires

A. Yu Kitaev
- 01 Oct 2001 - 
- Vol. 44, pp 131-136
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TLDR
In this article, a condition for boundary Majorana fermions is expressed as a condition on the bulk electron spectrum, which is satisfied in the presence of an arbitrary small energy gap induced by proximity of a 3D p-wave superconductor.
Abstract
Certain one-dimensional Fermi systems have an energy gap in the bulk spectrum while boundary states are described by one Majorana operator per boundary point. A finite system of length L possesses two ground states with an energy difference proportional to exp(-L/l0) and different fermionic parities. Such systems can be used as qubits since they are intrinsically immune to decoherence. The property of a system to have boundary Majorana fermions is expressed as a condition on the bulk electron spectrum. The condition is satisfied in the presence of an arbitrary small energy gap induced by proximity of a three-dimensional p-wave superconductor, provided that the normal spectrum has an odd number of Fermi points in each half of the Brillouin zone (each spin component counts separately).

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Topological insulators and superconductors

TL;DR: Topological superconductors are new states of quantum matter which cannot be adiabatically connected to conventional insulators and semiconductors and are characterized by a full insulating gap in the bulk and gapless edge or surface states which are protected by time reversal symmetry.
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Anyons in an exactly solved model and beyond

TL;DR: In this article, a spin-1/2 system on a honeycomb lattice is studied, where the interactions between nearest neighbors are of XX, YY or ZZ type, depending on the direction of the link; different types of interactions may differ in strength.
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Signatures of Majorana Fermions in Hybrid Superconductor-Semiconductor Nanowire Devices

TL;DR: Electrical measurements on indium antimonide nanowires contacted with one normal (gold) and one superconducting (niobium titanium nitride) electrode support the hypothesis of Majorana fermions in Nanowires coupled to superconductors.
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New directions in the pursuit of Majorana fermions in solid state systems.

TL;DR: In this article, a review of recent advances in the condensed matter search for Majorana fermions is presented, which has led many in the field to believe that this quest may soon bear fruit.
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Zero-bias peaks and splitting in an Al–InAs nanowire topological superconductor as a signature of Majorana fermions

TL;DR: In this paper, the existence of Majorana fermions in the one-dimensional topological superconductor induced by placing an aluminium super-conductor close to an indium-arsenide nanowire was shown.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Non-Abelian statistics of half-quantum vortices in p-wave superconductors.

TL;DR: From the properties of the solutions to Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations in the vortex core, the non-Abelian statistics of vortices are derived identical to that for the Moore-Read (Pfaffian) quantum Hall state.
Journal ArticleDOI

Quantum computations: algorithms and error correction

TL;DR: This book discusses classical models of computations, quantum formalism, symplecto-classical cases, and error correction in the computation process: general principles.
Proceedings ArticleDOI

Fault-tolerant quantum computation

TL;DR: For any quantum computation with t gates, a polynomial size quantum circuit that tolerates O(1/log/sup c/t) amounts of inaccuracy and decoherence per gate, for some constant c, was shown in this article.
Proceedings ArticleDOI

Fault-tolerant quantum computation with constant error

TL;DR: This paper shows how to perform fault tolerant quantum computation when the error probability, q, is smaller than some constant threshold, q.. the cost is polylogarithmic in time and space, and no measurements are used during the quantum computation.
Journal ArticleDOI

A Modular Functor Which is Universal for Quantum Computation

TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that the topological modular functor from Witten-Chern-Simons theory is universal for quantum computation in the sense that a quantum circuit can be efficiently approximated by an intertwining action of a braid on the functor's state space.
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