Landau Levels of Majorana Fermions in a Spin Liquid
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Contributors
Abstract
Majorana fermions, originally proposed as elementary particles acting as their own antiparticles, can be realized in condensed-matter systems as emergent quasiparticles, a situation often accompanied by topological order. Here we propose a physical system which realizes Landau levels - highly degenerate single-particle states usually resulting from an orbital magnetic field acting on charged particles - for Majorana fermions. This is achieved in a variant of a quantum spin system due to Kitaev which is distorted by triaxial strain. This strained Kitaev model displays a spin-liquid phase with charge-neutral Majorana-fermion excitations whose spectrum corresponds to that of Landau levels, here arising from a tailored pseudomagnetic field. We show that measuring the dynamic spin susceptibility reveals the Landau-level structure by a remarkable mechanism of probe-induced bound-state formation.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | 167201 |
Journal | Physical review letters |
Volume | 116 |
Issue number | 16 |
Publication status | Published - 21 Apr 2016 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |