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Robustness of Majorana edge modes and topological order: Exact results for the symmetric interacting Kitaev chain with disorder

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Abstract

We investigate the robustness of Majorana edge modes under disorder and interactions. We exploit a recently found mapping of the interacting Kitaev chain in the symmetric region ( μ

0 ,

t

Δ ) to free fermions. Extending the exact solution to the disordered case allows us to calculate analytically the topological phase boundary for all interaction and disorder strengths, which has been thought to be only accessible numerically. We discover a regime in which moderate disorder in the interaction matrix elements enhances topological order well into the strongly interacting regime U

t . We also derive the explicit form of the many-body Majorana edge wave function, revealing how it is dressed by many-particle fluctuations from interactions. The qualitative features of our analytical results are valid beyond the fine-tuned integrable point, as expected from the robustness of topological order and as corroborated here by an exact diagonalization study of small systems.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.mes-hall, cond-mat.mes-hall, cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.supr-con

Journal Title

Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2469-9950
2469-9969

Volume Title

96

Publisher

American Physical Society
Sponsorship
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Marie Sk?odowska-Curie actions (703697)
J.K. is supported by the Marie Curie Programme under EC Grant Agreement No. 703697. A.N. holds a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society and acknowledges support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability.