Revealing Majorana Fermion states in a superfluid of cold atoms subject to a harmonic potential

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the theoretical existence of Majorana Fermion states in a cold atom superfluid with spin-orbital coupling under a harmonic trap, providing potential experimental signatures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel setup combining spin-orbital coupling and harmonic trapping to realize and identify Majorana Fermion states in cold atom superfluids.

Findings

Two separated Majorana Fermion states are numerically revealed.

Local density of states signatures suggest experimental detectability.

The superfluid boundary is controlled by a harmonic trap.

Abstract

We here explore Majorana Fermion states in an s-wave superfluid of cold atoms in the presence of spin-orbital coupling and an additional harmonic potential. The superfluid boundary is induced by a harmonic trap. Two locally separated Majorana Fermion states are revealed numerically based on the self-consistent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. The local density of states are calculated, through which the signatures of Majorana excitations may be indicated experimentally.