Unveiling non-Abelian statistics of vortex Majorana bound states in iron-based superconductors using fermionic modes

TL;DR

This paper proposes a practical method to detect and verify the non-Abelian statistics of vortex Majorana bound states in iron-based superconductors through charge sensing and braiding protocols.

Contribution

It introduces a portable scheme using fermionic charge flip signals and a correction strategy to identify genuine vMBSs and perform non-Abelian braiding operations.

Findings

Charge flip signals distinguish genuine vMBSs from trivial modes.

Suppression of charge flip signals indicates strong hybridization or trivial vortex modes.

A feasible protocol for non-Abelian braiding of vMBSs is established.

Abstract

Motivated by the recent experiments that reported the discovery of vortex Majorana bound states (vMBSs) in iron-based superconductors, we establish a portable scheme to unveil the non-Abelian statistics of vMBSs using normal fermionic modes. The unique non-Abelian statistics of vMBSs is characterized by the charge flip signal of the fermions that can be easily read out through the charge sensing measurement. In particular, the charge flip signal will be significantly suppressed for strong hybridized vMBSs or trivial vortex modes, which efficiently identifies genuine vMBSs. To eliminate the error induced by the unnecessary dynamical evolution of the fermionic modes, we further propose a correction strategy by continually reversing the energy of the fermions, reminiscent of the quantum Zeno effect. Finally, we establish a feasible protocol to perform non-Abelian braiding operations on vMBSs.