Creation, manipulation and detection of Majorana fermions with cold atoms in optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper proposes an experimental scheme using cold atoms in optical lattices to simulate Majorana fermions, demonstrating their creation, manipulation, and non-Abelian braiding statistics with detectable fluorescence signals.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to realize and control Majorana fermions in cold atom systems, enabling experimental demonstration of their non-Abelian braiding.

Findings

Majorana fermions can be created at the ends of optical lattice segments.

Non-Abelian braiding statistics can be demonstrated unambiguously.

The scheme allows for detection via fluorescence signals.

Abstract

We propose an experimental scheme to simulate the transverse field Ising model with cold atoms trapped in one-dimensional optical lattice. Majorana fermions are created at the ends of the optical lattice segment in topological phase. By controlling the addressing lasers, one can move, fuse and braid them. We also show that the non-Abelian braiding statistics of Majorana fermions can be demonstrated unambiguously through the construction of two braiding operations and distinguishing the resulting two output orthogonal collective spin states. A nice feature of the scheme is that the strong fluorescence provided by the collective spin state can be readily detected in experiment.