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Probing the non-locality of Majorana fermions via quantum correlations
Majorana fermions (MFs) are exotic particles that are their own anti-particles. Recently, the search for the MFs occurring as quasi-particle excitations in solid-state systems has attracted widespread interest, because of their fundamental importance in fundamental physics and potential applications...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4017219/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24816484 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep04930 |
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author | Li, Jun Yu, Ting Lin, Hai-Qing You, J. Q. |
author_facet | Li, Jun Yu, Ting Lin, Hai-Qing You, J. Q. |
author_sort | Li, Jun |
collection | PubMed |
description | Majorana fermions (MFs) are exotic particles that are their own anti-particles. Recently, the search for the MFs occurring as quasi-particle excitations in solid-state systems has attracted widespread interest, because of their fundamental importance in fundamental physics and potential applications in topological quantum computation based on solid-state devices. Here we study the quantum correlations between two spatially separate quantum dots induced by a pair of MFs emerging at the two ends of a semiconductor nanowire, in order to develop a new method for probing the MFs. We find that without the tunnel coupling between these paired MFs, quantum entanglement cannot be induced from an unentangled (i.e., product) state, but quantum discord is observed due to the intrinsic nonlocal correlations of the paired MFs. This finding reveals that quantum discord can indeed demonstrate the intrinsic non-locality of the MFs formed in the nanowire. Also, quantum discord can be employed to discriminate the MFs from the regular fermions. Furthermore, we propose an experimental setup to measure the onset of quantum discord due to the nonlocal correlations. Our approach provides a new, and experimentally accessible, method to study the Majorana bound states by probing their intrinsic non-locality signature. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4017219 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-40172192014-05-13 Probing the non-locality of Majorana fermions via quantum correlations Li, Jun Yu, Ting Lin, Hai-Qing You, J. Q. Sci Rep Article Majorana fermions (MFs) are exotic particles that are their own anti-particles. Recently, the search for the MFs occurring as quasi-particle excitations in solid-state systems has attracted widespread interest, because of their fundamental importance in fundamental physics and potential applications in topological quantum computation based on solid-state devices. Here we study the quantum correlations between two spatially separate quantum dots induced by a pair of MFs emerging at the two ends of a semiconductor nanowire, in order to develop a new method for probing the MFs. We find that without the tunnel coupling between these paired MFs, quantum entanglement cannot be induced from an unentangled (i.e., product) state, but quantum discord is observed due to the intrinsic nonlocal correlations of the paired MFs. This finding reveals that quantum discord can indeed demonstrate the intrinsic non-locality of the MFs formed in the nanowire. Also, quantum discord can be employed to discriminate the MFs from the regular fermions. Furthermore, we propose an experimental setup to measure the onset of quantum discord due to the nonlocal correlations. Our approach provides a new, and experimentally accessible, method to study the Majorana bound states by probing their intrinsic non-locality signature. Nature Publishing Group 2014-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC4017219/ /pubmed/24816484 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep04930 Text en Copyright © 2014, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. The images in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the image credit; if the image is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the image. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Li, Jun Yu, Ting Lin, Hai-Qing You, J. Q. Probing the non-locality of Majorana fermions via quantum correlations |
title | Probing the non-locality of Majorana fermions via quantum correlations |
title_full | Probing the non-locality of Majorana fermions via quantum correlations |
title_fullStr | Probing the non-locality of Majorana fermions via quantum correlations |
title_full_unstemmed | Probing the non-locality of Majorana fermions via quantum correlations |
title_short | Probing the non-locality of Majorana fermions via quantum correlations |
title_sort | probing the non-locality of majorana fermions via quantum correlations |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4017219/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24816484 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep04930 |
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