Qubits based on Majorana zero modes are a promising path towards topological quantum computing. Such qubits, though, are susceptible to quasiparticle poisoning which does not have to be small by topological argument. We study the main sources of the quasiparticle poisoning relevant for realistic devices -- non-equilibrium above-gap quasiparticles and equilibrium localized subgap states. Depending on the parameters of the system and the architecture of the qubit either of these sources can dominate the qubit decoherence. However, we find in contrast to naive estimates that in moderately disordered, floating Majorana islands the quasiparticle poisoning can have timescales exceeding seconds.
We present radio-frequency measurements on a single-Cooper-pair-transistor in which individual quasiparticle poisoning events were observed with microsecond temporal resolution. Thermal activation of the quasiparticle dynamics is investigated, and consequently, we are able to determine energetics of the poisoning and un-poisoning processes. In particular, we are able to assign an effective quasiparticle temperature to parameterize the poisoning rate.
Reading out the parity degree of freedom of Majorana bound states is key to demonstrating their nonabelian exchange properties. Here, we present a low-energy model describing localized edge states in a two-arm device. We study parity-to-charge conversion based on coupling the superconductor bound states to a quantum dot whose charge is read out by a sensor. The dynamics of the system, including the readout device, is analyzed in full using a quantum-jump approach. We show how the resulting signal and noise ratio differentiates between local Majorana and Andreev bound states.
We propose a method of measuring the fermion parity lifetime of Majorana fermion modes due to quasiparticle poisoning. We model quasiparticle poisoning by coupling the Majorana modes to electron reservoirs, explicitly breaking parity conservation in the system. This poisoning broadens and shortens the resonance peak associated with Majorana modes. In a two lead geometry, the poisoning decreases the correlation in current noise between the two leads from the maximal value characteristic of crossed Andreev reflection. The latter measurement allows for calculation of the poisoning rate even if te…
We demonstrate the operation of a differential single Cooper-pair box, a charge qubit consisting of two aluminum islands, isolated from ground, coupled by a pair of small-area Josephson junctions, and read out with a superconducting differential radio-frequency single electron transistor. We have tested four devices, all of which show evidence of quasiparticle poisoning. The devices are characterized with microwave spectroscopy and temperature dependence studies, and Coulomb staircases are shown to be e-periodic in all samples. However, coherent control is still possible with non-adiabatic vol…
We consider the problem of quasiparticle poisoning in a nanowire-based realization of a Majorana qubit, where a spin-orbit-coupled semiconducting wire is placed on top of a (bulk) superconductor. By making use of recent experimental data exhibiting evidence of a low-temperature residual non-equilibrium quasiparticle population in superconductors, we show by means of analytical and numerical calculations that the dephasing time due to the tunneling of quasiparticles into the nanowire may be problematically short to allow for qubit manipulation.
We investigate effects of quasiparticle poisoning in a Majorana island with strong tunnel coupling to normal-metal leads. In addition to the main Coulomb blockade diamonds, "shadow" diamonds appear, shifted by 1e in gate voltage, consistent with transport through an excited (poisoned) state of the island. Comparison to a simple model yields an estimate of parity lifetime for the strongly coupled island (~ 1 μs) and sets a bound for a weakly coupled island (> 10 μs). Fluctuations in the gate-voltage spacing of Coulomb peaks at high field, reflecting Majorana hybridization, are enhanced by the r…
Majorana zero modes have been attracting considerable attention because of their prospective applications in fault-tolerant topological quantum computing. In recent years, some schemes have been proposed to detect and manipulate Majorana zero modes using superconducting qubits. However, manipulating and reading the Majorana zero modes must be kept in the time window of quasiparticle poisoning. In this work, we study the problem of quasiparticle poisoning in a split transmon qubit containing hybrid Josephson junctions involving Majorana zero modes. We show that Majorana coupling will cause pari…
We increase the isolation of a superconducting double dot from its environment by galvanically isolating it from any electrodes. We probe it using high frequency reflectometry techniques, find 2e-periodic behaviour, and characterise the energy structure of its charge states. By modelling the response of the device, we determine the quasiparticle poisoning rate to be significantly worse than that of a unisolated double dot, and conclude that quasiparticle exchange between the dot and the leads is an important relaxation mechanism.
The fractional Josephson effect remains one of the decisive hallmarks of topologically protected Majorana zero modes. We analyze the effects of parity violating quasiparticle poisoning onto the current voltage characteristics of topological Josephson junctions. We include poisoning events directly within the resistively shunted junction (RSJ) model in the overdamped limit both in the short- and long-junction regime. We calculate the current voltage characteristics numerically where poisoning is modeled either via additional rates in the Fokker-Planck equations or by a time dependent parity and…
We present a theoretical analysis of quasiparticle poisoning in Coulomb-blockaded Majorana fermion systems tunnel-coupled to normal-conducting leads. Taking into account finite-energy quasiparticles, we derive the effective low-energy theory and present a renormalization group analysis. We find qualitatively new effects when a quasiparticle state with very low energy is localized near a tunnel contact. For $M=2$ attached leads, such "dangerous" quasiparticle poisoning processes cause a spin $S=1/2$ single-channel Kondo effect, which can be detected through a characteristic zero-bias anomaly co…
We introduce a toy model that allows us to study the physical properties of a spin impurity coupled to the electrons in the superconducting island. We show that when the coupling of the spin is of the order of the superconducting gap two almost degenerate subgap states are formed. By computing the Berry phase that is associated with the superconducting phase rotations in this model, we prove that these subgap states are characterized by a different charge and demonstrate that the switching between these states has the same effect as quasiparticle poisoning (unpoisoning) of the island. We also …
We present designs for scalable quantum computers composed of qubits encoded in aggregates of four or more Majorana zero modes, realized at the ends of topological superconducting wire segments that are assembled into superconducting islands with significant charging energy. Quantum information can be manipulated according to a measurement-only protocol, which is facilitated by tunable couplings between Majorana zero modes and nearby semiconductor quantum dots. Our proposed architecture designs have the following principal virtues: (1) the magnetic field can be aligned in the direction of all …
The single-particle excitations of a superconductor are coherent superpositions of electrons and holes near the Fermi level, called Bogoliubov quasiparticles. They are Majorana fermions, meaning that pairs of quasiparticles can annihilate. We calculate the annihilation probability at a beam splitter for chiral quantum Hall edge states, obtaining a 1 +/- cos phi dependence on the phase difference phi of the superconductors from which the excitations originated (with the +/- sign distinguishing singlet and triplet pairing). This provides for a nonlocal measurement of the superconducting phase in…
We study single-electron charging events in an Al/InAs nanowire hybrid system with deliberately introduced gapless regions. The occupancy of a Coulomb island is detected using a nearby radio-frequency quantum dot as a charge sensor. We demonstrate that a 1 micron gapped segment of the wire can be used to efficiently suppress single electron poisoning of the gapless region and therefore protect the parity of the island while maintaining good electrical contact with a normal lead. In the absence of protection by charging energy, the 1e switching rate can be reduced below 200 per second. In the s…
In the space of less than one decade, the search for Majorana quasiparticles in condensed matter has become one of the hottest topics in physics. The aim of this review is to provide a brief perspective of where we are with strong focus on artificial implementations of one-dimensional topological superconductivity. After a self-contained introduction and some technical parts, an overview of the current experimental status is given and some of the most successful experiments of the last few years are discussed in detail. These include the novel generation of ballistic InSb nanowire devices, epi…
We investigate the inhomogeneous Rashba chain coupled to a superconducting substrate, hosting the Majorana quasiparticles near its edges. We discuss its subgap spectrum and study how robust are the zero-energy quasiparticles against the diagonal and off-diagonal disorder. Studying the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological invariant we show that disorder induced transition from the topologically non-trivial to trivial phases is manifested by characteristic features in the spatially-resolved quasiparticle spectrum at zero energy. We provide evidence for the non-local nature of the zero-energy Majorana quas…
We propose a universal gate set acting on a qubit formed by the degenerate ground states of a Coulomb-blockaded time-reversal invariant topological superconductor island with spatially separated Majorana Kramers pairs: the "Majorana Kramers Qubit". All gate operations are implemented by coupling the Majorana Kramers pairs to conventional superconducting leads. Interestingly, in such an all-superconducting device, the energy gap of the leads provides another layer of protection from quasiparticle poisoning independent of the island charging energy. Moreover, the absence of strong magnetic field…
We propose a novel method for suppression of quasiparticle poisoning in Al Coulomb blockade devices. The method is based on creation of a proper energy gap profile along the device. In contrast to the previously used techniques, the energy gap is controlled by the film thickness. Our transport measurements confirm that the quasiparticle poisoning is suppressed and clear 2$e$ periodicity is observed only when the island is made much thinner than the leads. This result is consistent with the existing model and provides a simple method to suppress quasiparticle poisoning.
Majorana quasiparticles localized in vortex cores of a chiral p-wave superconductor hybridize with one another to form bands in a vortex lattice. We begin by solving a fully microscopic theory describing all quasiparticle bands in a chiral p-wave superconductor in magnetic field, then use this solution to build localized Wannier wavefunctions corresponding to Majorana quasiparticles. A low-energy tight-binding theory describing the intervortex hopping of these is then derived, and its topological properties---which depend crucially on the signs of the imaginary intervortex hopping parameters--…
We consider different configurations of ac driven quantum dots coupled to superconductor leads where Majorana fermions can exist as collective quasiparticles. The main goal is to tune the existence, localization and properties of these zero energy quasiparticles by means of periodically driven external gates. In particular, we analyze the relevance of the system and driving symmetry. We predict the existence of different sweet spots with Floquet Majorana fermions in configurations where they are not present in the undriven system.
We introduce error-correcting codes that can correct for fermion parity-violating (quasiparticle poisoning) and parity-conserving errors in systems of complex fermions and of Majorana fermions. After establishing properties of fermion codes, we introduce a generic construction of fermion codes from weakly self-dual classical, binary error-correcting codes. We use this method to construct (i) the shortest fermion code to correct for quasiparticle poisoning errors, (ii) translationally-invariant fermion codes and (iii) other codes that correct higher-weight errors. We conclude by discussing a po…
We study a superconducting charge qubit coupled to an intensive electromagnetic field and probe changes in the resonance frequency of the formed dressed states. At large driving strengths, exceeding the qubit energy-level splitting, this reveals the well known Landau-Zener-Stuckelberg (LZS) interference structure of a longitudinally driven two-level system. For even stronger drives we observe a significant change in the LZS pattern and contrast. We attribute this to photon-assisted quasiparticle tunneling in the qubit. This results in the recovery of the qubit parity, eliminating effects of qu…
We analyze the topological superconductivity and investigate the spectroscopic properties manifested by the zero-energy modes, induced in a metallic strip embedded into a Josephson-type junction. Focusing on the Majorana polarization of such quasiparticles, we propose feasible means for its empirical detection, using the spin-selective Andreev reflection method. Our study reveals a gradual development of a transverse gradient of the Majorana polarization across the metallic strip upon increasing its width. We also inspect the spatial profile and polarization of the Majorana quasiparticles in t…
We study the error correcting properties of Majorana Surface Codes (MSC), topological quantum codes constructed out of interacting Majorana fermions, which can be used to store quantum information and perform quantum computation. These quantum memories suffer from purely "fermionic" errors, such as quasiparticle poisoning (QP), that have no analog in conventional platforms with bosonic qubits. In physical realizations where QP dominates, we show that errors can be corrected provided that the poisoning rate is below a threshold of $\sim11\%$. When QP is highly suppressed and fermionic bilinear …
Zero--energy Majorana quasiparticles can be induced at the edge of a low dimensional systems. Non--Abelian statistics of this state makes it a good candidate for the realization of quantum computing. From the practical point of view, it is crucial to obtain an intentional creation and manipulation of this type of bound states. Here, we show such a possibility in a setup of quantum nanoring in which we specify a quantum dot region via electrostatic means. States in such quantum dot can lead to the emergence of Andreev and Majorana bound states in investigated system. We study the differences be…
Recent experiments show the possibility of realization of the Majorana quasiparticles at the end of the low dimensional structures. In this type of systems, interplay between spin orbit coupling, superconductivity and magnetic field leads to the emergence of the Majorana bound states in the topologically non-trivial phase. Here, we study the nanowire located partially at the normal and superconducting base, using microscopic model of this structure and the Bogoliubov--de~Gennes technique. We discuss the possibility of the leakage of the Majorana bound state, located at the part above supercond…
Majorana bound states (MBS) and Andreev bound states (ABS) in realistic Majorana nanowires setups have similar experimental signatures which make them hard to distinguishing one from the other. Here, we characterize the continuous Majorana/Andreev crossover interpolating between fully-separated, partially-separated, and fully-overlapping Majorana modes, in terms of global and local topological invariants, fermion parity, quasiparticle densities, Majorana pseudospin and spin polarizations, density overlaps and transition probabilities between opposite Majorana components. We found that in inhom…
Majorana bound states in topological Josephson junctions induce a 4? period current-phase relation. Direct detection of the 4? periodicity is complicated by the quasiparticle poisoning. We reveal that Majorana bound states are also signaled by the anomalous enhancement on the critical current of the junction. We show the landscape of the critical current for a nanowire Josephson junction under a varying Zeeman field, and reveal a sharp step feature at the topological quantum phase transition point, which comes from the anomalous enhancement of the critical current at the topological regime. In…
Quasiparticle poisoning and diabatic transitions may significantly narrow the window for the experimental observation of the $4π$-periodic $dc$ Josephson effect predicted for topological Josephson junctions. Here, we show that switching current measurements provide accessible and robust signatures for topological superconductivity which persist in the presence of quasiparticle poisoning processes. Such measurements provide access to the phase-dependent subgap spectrum and Josephson currents of the topological junction when incorporating it into an asymmetric SQUID together with a conventional …
Engineering effective p-wave superconductors hosting Majorana quasiparticles (MQPs) is nowadays of particular interest, also in view of the possible utilization of MQPs in fault-tolerant topological quantum computation. In quasi one-dimensional systems, the parameter space for topological superconductivity is significantly reduced by the coupling between transverse modes. Together with the requirement of achieving the topological phase under experimentally feasible conditions, this strongly restricts in practice the choice of systems which can host MQPs. Here we demonstrate that semiconducting…
Majorana fermions have been intensively studied in recent years for their importance to both fundamental science and potential applications in topological quantum computing1,2. Majorana fermions are predicted to exist in a vortex core of superconducting topological insulators3. However, they are extremely difficult to be distinguished experimentally from other quasiparticle states for the tiny energy difference between Majorana fermions and these states, which is beyond the energy resolution of most available techniques. Here, we overcome the problem by systematically investigating the spatial…
For an electrically driven electron confined in a nanowire quantum dot with spin-orbit coupling (SOC), we find a SOC-magnetism phase-locked condition under which we derive a complete set of Schrödinger kitten states which contains some novel degenerate ground states with oscillating wave packets or stationary double packets in undriven case. We identify such wave packets as Majorana-like quasiparticles and demonstrate that they obey non-Abelian statistics and behave similarly to neutral particles. The braiding operations based on the interchanges of the degenerate non-Abelian quasiparticles ar…
We theoretically study a spin-orbit-coupled nanowire proximitized by a superconductor in the presence of an externally applied Zeeman field ("Majorana nanowire") with zero-energy Majorana bound states localized at the two ends of the wire when the Zeeman spin splitting is large enough for the system to enter the topological phase. The specific physics of interest in the current work is the effect of having several tunnel probes attached to the wire along its length. Such tunnel probes should allow, as a matter of principle, one to observe both the predicted bulk superconducting gap closing and…
One-dimensional topological superconductors are known to host Majorana zero modes at domain walls terminating the topological phase. Their nonabelian nature allows for processing quantum information by braiding operations which are insensitive to local perturbations, making Majorana zero modes a promising platform for topological quantum computation. Motivated by the ultimate goal of executing quantum information processing on a finite timescale, we study domain walls moving at a constant velocity. We exploit an effective Lorentz invariance of the Hamiltonian to obtain an exact solution of the…
We study numerically the formation of Majorana bound states in a finite-size quasi-one-dimensional square-lattice strip with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, in the presence of a proximity-induced superconducting pairing and a magnetic field perpendicular to the strip. We take into account both the Zeeman and orbital effects of the field. First, using the Majorana polarization, we demonstrate that such a system can host more than one pair of Majorana quasiparticles. We construct the corresponding topological phase diagram and we conclude that the topological regions are extended in the presence of …
Quasiparticle (qp) poisoning is a major issue that impairs the operation of various superconducting devices. Even though these devices are often operated at temperatures well below the critical point where the number density of excitations is expected to be exponentially suppressed, their bare operation and stray microwave radiation excite the non-equilibrium qps. Here we use voltage-biased superconducting junctions to demonstrate and quantify qp extraction in the turnstile operation of a superconductor-insulator-normal metal-insulator-superconductor single-electron transistor. In this operati…
Experimental techniques to verify Majoranas are of current interest. A prominent test is the effect of Majoranas on the Josephson current between two wires linked via a normal junction. Here, we study the case of a quantum dot connecting the two superconductors and the sign of the supercurrent in the trivial and topological regimes under grand-canonical equilibrium conditions, explicitly allowing for parity changes due to, e.g., quasi-particle poisoning. We find that the well-known supercurrent reversal for odd occupancy of the quantum dot (pi-junction) in the trivial case does not occur in th…
Interplay between superconductivity, spin-orbit coupling and magnetic field can lead to realisation of the topologically non--trivial states which in finite one dimensional nanowires are manifested by emergence of a pair of zero-energy Majorana bound states. On the other hand, in two dimensional systems spin current contributed by the edge states might appear. We investigate novel properties of the bound states in a system of mixed dimensionality, composed of one-dimensional nanowire connected with two-dimensional plaquette. This setup could be patterned epitaxially, e.g. using heterostructure…
Non-Abelian quasiparticles have been predicted to exist in a variety of condensed matter systems. Their defining property is that an adiabatic braid between two of them results in a nontrivial change of the quantum state of the system. To date, no experimental platform has reached the desired control over non-Abelian quasiparticles to demonstrate this remarkable property. The simplest non-Abelian quasiparticles -- the Majorana bound states (MBS) -- can occur in one-dimensional (1D) electronic nano-structures proximity-coupled to a bulk superconductor -- a platform that is being currently explo…
We investigate the subgap spectrum and transport properties of the quantum dot placed on interface between metallic and superconducting leads and additionally side-coupled to the edge of topological superconducting (TS) chain, hosting the Majorana quasiparticle. Due to chiral nature of the Majorana states only one spin component, say $\uparrow$, of the quantum dot electrons is directly hybridized with the TS wire. We study the spin-selective interferometric patterns driven by the Majorana quasiparticle. The proximity induced on-dot pairing effectively transmits the interference onto both spin …
We propose to directly probe the chirality of Majorana edge states in 2D topological superconductors using polarization selective photon absorption. When shining circularly polarized light on a 2D topological superconductor in disk geometry, the photons can excite quasiparticles only when the polarization of the light matches the chirality of the Majorana edge states required by the angular momentum conservation. Hence one can obtain the chirality of the Majorana edge states by measuring the photon absorption rate. We show that the polarization selective photon absorption can also serve as a s…
One-dimensional systems obtained as low-energy limits of hybrid superconductor-topological insulator devices provide means of production, transport, and destruction of Majorana bound states (MBSs) by variations of the magnetic flux. When two or more pairs of MBSs are present in the intermediate state, there is a possibility of a Landau-Zener transition, wherein even a slow variation of the flux leads to production of a quasiparticle pair. We study numerically a version of this process, with four MBSs produced and subsequently destroyed, and find that, quite universally, the probability of quas…
We study fundamental limitations on the energy relaxation rate of a superconducting charge qubit with a large-gap Cooper-pair box, $Δ_b > Δ_r$. At a sufficiently large mismatch between the gap energies in the box $Δ_b$ and in the reservoir $Δ_r$,"quasiparticle poisoning" becomes ineffective even in the presence of nonequilibrium quasiparticles in the reservoir. The qubit relaxation still may occur due to higher-order (Andreev) processes. In this paper we evaluate the qubit energy relaxation rate due to Andreev processes.
We propose a theoretical approach based on an interferometer composed by two quantum dots asymmetrically coupled to isolated Majorana quasiparticles (MQPs), lying on the edges of two topological Kitaev chains, respectively via couplings $(t+Δ)$ and $(Δ-t)$. This setup enables us to probe MQPs in a quite distinct way from the zero-bias peak feature. Most importantly, the system behaves as a current switch made by two distinct paths: (i) for the upper dot connected to both chains, the device perceives both MQPs as an ordinary fermion and the current crosses solely the lower dot, since current in…
We investigate the dynamics of a charge qubit consisting of two Coulomb-blockaded islands hosting Majorana zero modes. The frequency of the qubit is determined by coherent single-electron tunneling between two islands originating from the hybridization of two Majorana zero modes localized at the junction. We calculate the sequential tunneling current $I$ through the double-island device coupled to normal metal leads. We demonstrate that the $I\!-\!V$ characteristics in the large-bias regime can be used as a measurement of the coherent Majorana coupling $E_M$. We propose dc and ac transport exp…
We study a Josephson junction in a Kitaev chain with particle-hole symmetric nearest neighbor interactions. When the phase difference across the junction is $π$, we show analytically that the full spectrum is fourfold degenerate up to corrections that vanish exponentially in the system size. The Majorana bound states at the ends of the chain are known to survive interactions. Our result proves that the same is true for the zero-energy quasiparticle localized at the junction. We further study finite size corrections numerically, and show how repulsive interactions lead to stronger end-to-end co…
Majorana-based quantum computing seeks to use the non-local nature of Majorana zero modes to store and manipulate quantum information in a topologically protected way. While noise is anticipated to be significantly suppressed in such systems, finite temperature and system size result in residual errors. In this work, we connect the underlying physical error processes in Majorana-based systems to the noise models used in a fault tolerance analysis. Standard qubit-based noise models built from Pauli operators do not capture leading order noise processes arising from quasiparticle poisoning event…
We study the proximity effect in a topological nanowire tunnel coupled to an s-wave superconducting substrate. We use a general Green's function approach that allows us to study the evolution of the Andreev bound states in the wire into Majorana fermions. We show that the strength of the tunnel coupling induces a topological transition in which the Majorana fermionic states can be destroyed when the coupling is very strong. Moreover, we provide a phenomenologial study of the effects of disorder in the superconductor on the formation of Majorana fermions. We note a non-trivial effect of a quasi…
The Josephson junction of a strong spin-orbit material under a magnetic field is a promising Majorana fermion candidate. Supercurrent enhancement by a magnetic field has been observed in the InAs nanowire Josephson junctions and assigned to a topological transition. In this work we observe a similar phenomenon but discuss the non-topological origin by considering trapping of quasiparticles by vortices that penetrate the superconductor under a finite magnetic field. This assignment is supported by the observed hysteresis of the switching current when sweeping up and down the magnetic field. Our…
Majorana fermions can be realized as quasiparticles in topological superconductors, with potential applications in topological quantum computing. Recently, lattices of magnetic adatoms deposited on the surface of s-wave superconductors - Shiba lattices - have been proposed as a new platform for topological superconductivity. These systems possess the great advantage that they are accessible via scanning-probe techniques, and thus enable the local manipulation and detection of Majorana modes. Realizing quantum bits on this basis will rely on the creation of nanoscopic Shiba lattices, so-called …
Quantum spin liquids hosting Majorana excitations have recently experienced renewed interest for potential applications to topological quantum computation. Performing logical operations with reduced poisoning requires to localize such quasiparticles at specific point of the system, with energies that are well defined and inside the bulk energy gap. These are two defining features of second order topological insulators (SOTIs). Here, we show two spin models that support quantum spin liquid phases characterised by Majorana excitations and that behave as SOTIs, one of which is analytically solvab…
