Steve Simon

Abstract:

Topological insulator surfaces in proximity to superconductors have been proposed as a way to produce Majorana fermions in condensed matter physics. One of the simplest proposed experiments with such a system is Majorana interferometry. Here we consider two possibly conflicting constraints on the size of such an interferometer. Coupling of a Majorana mode from the edge (the arms) of the interferometer to vortices in the center of the device sets a lower bound on the size of the device. On the other hand, scattering to the usually imperfectly insulating bulk sets an upper bound. From estimates of experimental parameters, we find that typical samples may have no size window in which the Majorana interferometer can operate, implying that a new generation of more highly insulating samples must be explored.

Abstract:

We study the two-dimensional electron gas in a magnetic field at filling fraction ν =1/2. At this filling the system is in a gapless state which can be interpreted as a Fermi liquid of composite fermions. We construct trial wave functions for the system on a torus, based on this idea, and numerically compare these to exact wave functions for small systems found by exact diagonalization. We find that the trial wave functions give an excellent description of the ground state of the system, as well as its charged excitations, in all momentum sectors. We analyze the dispersion of the composite fermions and the Berry phase associated with dragging a single fermion around the Fermi surface and comment on the implications of our results for the current debate on whether composite fermions are Dirac fermions.