Two types of dark solitons in a spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gas

TL;DR

This paper reveals two distinct types of dark solitons in spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gases, with one type capable of supporting Majorana zero modes and surviving topological phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces the existence of two types of dark solitons in spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gases and identifies the conditions under which they support Majorana modes.

Findings

Two types of dark solitons exist in the system.

One soliton type supports Majorana zero modes.

The minigap of Andreev bound states vanishes at the topological transition.

Abstract

Dark solitons in quantum fluids are well known nonlinear excitations that are usually characterized by a single length scale associated with the underlying background fluid. We show that in the presence of spin-orbit coupling and a linear Zeeman field, superfluid Fermi gases support two different types of nonlinear excitations featured by corresponding length scales related to the existence of two Fermi surfaces. Only one of these types, which occurs for finite spin-orbit coupling and a Zeeman field, survives to the topological phase transition, and is therefore capable to sustain Majorana zero modes. At the point of the emergence of this soliton for varying the Zeeman field, the associated Andreev bound states present a minigap that vanishes for practical purposes, in spite of lacking the reality condition of Majorana modes.