25.12.2013 Views

ABSTRACT - DRUM - University of Maryland

ABSTRACT - DRUM - University of Maryland

ABSTRACT - DRUM - University of Maryland

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Chapter 7<br />

Majorana Zero Modes Beyond BCS Mean-Field<br />

Theory<br />

The BCS theory <strong>of</strong> superconductivity [149], which all our theoretical study<br />

<strong>of</strong> topological superconductors is based on, is a mean-field theory <strong>of</strong> the manybody<br />

effect originating from four-fermion interaction. Although it has been proved<br />

to be enormously successful in describing superconductivity, fluctuation effects beyond<br />

the mean-field theory do arise in certain circumstances. For example, in the<br />

neighborhood <strong>of</strong> the superconducting phase transition where the mean-field order<br />

parameter is very small, the fluctuation effect can be dominant in various thermodynamical<br />

quantities. Another scenario where fluctuations can not be neglected is<br />

low-dimensional systems, where fluctuation effects are actually most prominent. A<br />

celebrated theorem proved by Mermin and Wagner [150], states that under very<br />

generic conditions (e.g. short-range interactions) no spontaneous continuous symmetry<br />

breaking can occur in one dimension (1 + 1 space-time dimension) even at<br />

zero temperature. The same is true in two dimensions at any finite temperature. In<br />

both cases, the <strong>of</strong>f-diagonal long-range order [151], which defines the spontaneous<br />

symmetry breaking, is smeared out by strong quantum or thermal fluctuations and<br />

becomes quasi-long-range order characterized by the algebraic decay <strong>of</strong> order pa-<br />

127

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!