Electrical Probes of the Non-Abelian Spin Liquid in Kitaev Materials

Abstract

Recent thermal-conductivity measurements evidence a magnetic-field-induced non-Abelian spin-liquid phase in the Kitaev material α−RuCl₃. Although the platform is a good Mott insulator, we propose experiments that electrically probe the spin liquid’s hallmark chiral Majorana edge state and bulk anyons, including their exotic exchange statistics. We specifically introduce circuits that exploit interfaces between electrically active systems and Kitaev materials to “perfectly” convert electrons from the former into emergent fermions in the latter—thereby enabling variations of transport probes invented for topological superconductors and fractional quantum-Hall states. Along the way, we resolve puzzles in the literature concerning interacting Majorana fermions, and also develop an anyon-interferometry framework that incorporates nontrivial energy-partitioning effects. Our results illuminate a partial pathway toward topological quantum computation with Kitaev materials.