Majorana modes and p-wave superfluids for fermionic atoms in optical lattices

• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5504
• Publication Date: 2014-07-25T11:30:23Z
• Authors: A. Bühler; N. Lang; C.V. Kraus; G. Möller; S.D. Huber; H.P. Büchler
• Keywords: 4009 Electronics, Sensors and Digital Hardware; 5102 Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics; Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); 0103 physical sciences; 11000/11; FOS: Physical sciences; Condensed Matter - Quantum Gases; 51 Physical Sciences; 01 natural sciences; 5108 Quantum Physics; 40 Engineering

We present a simple approach to create a strong $p$-wave interaction for fermions in an optical lattice. The crucial step is that the combination of a lattice setup with different orbital states and $s$-wave interactions can give rise to a strong induced $p$-wave pairing. We identify different topological phases and demonstrate that the setup offers a natural way to explore the transition from Kitaev's Majorana wires to two-dimensional $p$-wave superfluids. We demonstrate how this design can induce Majorana modes at edge dislocations in the optical lattice, and we provide an experimentally feasible protocol for the observation of the non-Abelian statistics.