Published January 15, 2024 | Version Published
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Edge states of two-dimensional time-reversal invariant topological superconductors with strong interactions and disorder: A view from the lattice

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology

Abstract

Two-dimensional time-reversal-invariant topological superconductors host helical Majorana fermions at their boundary. We study the fate of these edge states under the combined influence of strong interactions and disorder, using the effective one-dimensional (1D) lattice model for the edge introduced by Jones and Metlitski [Phys. Rev. B 104, 245130 (2021)]. We specifically develop a strong-disorder renormalization-group analysis of the lattice model and identify a regime in which time-reversal is broken spontaneously, creating random magnetic domains; Majorana fermions localize to domain walls and form an infinite-randomness fixed point, identical to that appearing in the random transverse-field Ising model. While this infinite-randomness fixed point describes a fine-tuned critical point in a purely 1D system, in our edge context there is no obvious time-reversal-preserving perturbation that destabilizes the fixed point. Our analysis thus suggests that the infinite-randomness fixed point emerges as a stable phase on the edge of two-dimensional topological superconductors when strong disorder and interactions are present.

Copyright and License

© 2024 American Physical Society.

Acknowledgement

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Additional details

Identifiers

ISSN
2469-9969

Funding

California Institute of Technology
Institute for Quantum Information and Matter
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
GBMF1250
United States Department of Energy
National Science Foundation
DMR-2001186

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Caltech groups
Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics