scholarly journals Scalable designs for quasiparticle-poisoning-protected topological quantum computation with Majorana zero modes

2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (23) ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Karzig ◽  
Christina Knapp ◽  
Roman M. Lutchyn ◽  
Parsa Bonderson ◽  
Matthew B. Hastings ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingyuan Kong ◽  
Lu Cao ◽  
Shiyu Zhu ◽  
Michał Papaj ◽  
Guangyang Dai ◽  
...  

AbstractThe iron-based superconductor is emerging as a promising platform for Majorana zero mode, which can be used to implement topological quantum computation. One of the most significant advances of this platform is the appearance of large vortex level spacing that strongly protects Majorana zero mode from other low-lying quasiparticles. Despite the advantages in the context of physics research, the inhomogeneity of various aspects hampers the practical construction of topological qubits in the compounds studied so far. Here we show that the stoichiometric superconductor LiFeAs is a good candidate to overcome this obstacle. By using scanning tunneling microscopy, we discover that the Majorana zero modes, which are absent on the natural clean surface, can appear in vortices influenced by native impurities. Our detailed analysis reveals a new mechanism for the emergence of those Majorana zero modes, i.e. native tuning of bulk Dirac fermions. The discovery of Majorana zero modes in this homogeneous material, with a promise of tunability, offers an ideal material platform for manipulating and braiding Majorana zero modes, pushing one step forward towards topological quantum computation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ville Lahtinen ◽  
Jiannis Pachos

This review presents an entry-level introduction to topological quantum computation -- quantum computing with anyons. We introduce anyons at the system-independent level of anyon models and discuss the key concepts of protected fusion spaces and statistical quantum evolutions for encoding and processing quantum information. Both the encoding and the processing are inherently resilient against errors due to their topological nature, thus promising to overcome one of the main obstacles for the realisation of quantum computers. We outline the general steps of topological quantum computation, as well as discuss various challenges faced by it. We also review the literature on condensed matter systems where anyons can emerge. Finally, the appearance of anyons and employing them for quantum computation is demonstrated in the context of a simple microscopic model -- the topological superconducting nanowire -- that describes the low-energy physics of several experimentally relevant settings. This model supports localised Majorana zero modes that are the simplest and the experimentally most tractable types of anyons that are needed to perform topological quantum computation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sankar Das Sarma ◽  
Michael Freedman ◽  
Chetan Nayak

AbstractWe provide a current perspective on the rapidly developing field of Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in solid-state systems. We emphasise the theoretical prediction, experimental realisation and potential use of MZMs in future information processing devices through braiding-based topological quantum computation (TQC). Well-separated MZMs should manifest non-Abelian braiding statistics suitable for unitary gate operations for TQC. Recent experimental work, following earlier theoretical predictions, has shown specific signatures consistent with the existence of Majorana modes localised at the ends of semiconductor nanowires in the presence of superconducting proximity effect. We discuss the experimental findings and their theoretical analyses, and provide a perspective on the extent to which the observations indicate the existence of anyonic MZMs in solid-state systems. We also discuss fractional quantum Hall systems (the 5/2 state), which have been extensively studied in the context of non-Abelian anyons and TQC. We describe proposed schemes for carrying out braiding with MZMs as well as the necessary steps for implementing TQC.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Tran ◽  
Alex Bocharov ◽  
Bela Bauer ◽  
Parsa Bonderson

One of the main challenges for quantum computation is that while the number of gates required to perform a non-trivial quantum computation may be very large, decoherence and errors in realistic quantum architectures limit the number of physical gate operations that can be performed coherently. Therefore, an optimal mapping of the quantum algorithm into the physically available set of operations is of crucial importance. We examine this problem for a measurement-only topological quantum computer based on Majorana zero modes, where gates are performed through sequences of measurements. Such a scheme has been proposed as a practical, scalable approach to process quantum information in an array of topological qubits built using Majorana zero modes. Building on previous work that has shown that multi-qubit Clifford gates can be enacted in a topologically protected fashion in such qubit networks, we discuss methods to obtain the optimal measurement sequence for a given Clifford gate under the constraints imposed by the physical architecture, such as layout and the relative difficulty of implementing different types of measurements. Our methods also provide tools for comparative analysis of different architectures and strategies, given experimental characterizations of particular aspects of the systems under consideration. As a further non-trivial demonstration, we discuss an implementation of the surface code in Majorana-based topological qubits. We use the techniques developed here to obtain an optimized measurement sequence that implements the stabilizer measurements using only fermionic parity measurements on nearest-neighbor topological qubit islands.


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (44) ◽  
pp. 12386-12390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailong Fu ◽  
Pengjie Wang ◽  
Pujia Shan ◽  
Lin Xiong ◽  
Loren N. Pfeiffer ◽  
...  

Some theories predict that the filling factor 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state can exhibit non-Abelian statistics, which makes it a candidate for fault-tolerant topological quantum computation. Although the non-Abelian Pfaffian state and its particle-hole conjugate, the anti-Pfaffian state, are the most plausible wave functions for the 5/2 state, there are a number of alternatives with either Abelian or non-Abelian statistics. Recent experiments suggest that the tunneling exponents are more consistent with an Abelian state rather than a non-Abelian state. Here, we present edge-current–tunneling experiments in geometrically confined quantum point contacts, which indicate that Abelian and non-Abelian states compete at filling factor 5/2. Our results are consistent with a transition from an Abelian state to a non-Abelian state in a single quantum point contact when the confinement is tuned. Our observation suggests that there is an intrinsic non-Abelian 5/2 ground state but that the appropriate confinement is necessary to maintain it. This observation is important not only for understanding the physics of the 5/2 state but also for the design of future topological quantum computation devices.


Author(s):  
Niccolò Traverso Ziani ◽  
Lucia Vigliotti ◽  
Matteo Carrega ◽  
Fabio Cavaliere

Majorana bound states in topological superconductors have attracted intense research activity in view of applications in topological quantum computation. However, they are not the only example of topological bound states that can occur in such systems. We here study a model in which both Majorana and Tamm bound states compete. We show both numerically and analytically that, surprisingly, the Tamm state remains partially localized even when the spectrum becomes gapless. Despite this fact, we demonstrate that the Majorana polarization shows a clear transition between the two regimes.


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