Critical region of topological trivial and nontrivial phases in interacting Kitaev chain with spatially varying potentials

TL;DR

This study uses numerical methods to explore how spatially varying potentials and interactions affect the topological phases of an interacting Kitaev chain, revealing complex phase transitions and emergent phenomena.

Contribution

It uncovers the emergence of a trivial phase separating topological phases due to competing effects and introduces a potential-induced Fracton mechanism affecting Majorana fermions.

Findings

Topological nontrivial phase is split into two by a trivial phase.

Potential-induced Fracton mechanism causes symmetry breaking.

Nontrivial phase can reemerge with increased interaction.

Abstract

By using the variational matrix product state method, we numerically study the interacting Kitaev chain with spatially varying periodic and quasi-periodic potentials and the latter follows the Fibonacci sequence. The edge correlation functions of Majorana fermions and low-lying ground states are computed to explore the robustness of topological superconducting phase. It is found that the original topological nontrivial phase is separated into to two branches by an emergent topological trivial phase, as a result of the competition among spatially varying potential, electronic Coulomb interaction and chemical potential. The analysis of energy gap and occupation number together suggests that the spontaneous symmetry breaking and the lift of degeneracy in the topological trivial phase are enabled by a potential-induced Fracton mechanism, namely the pairing of four Majorana fermions. It can be broken by further enhancing the interaction, and then the nontrivial phase reemerges. The evolution from the emergent fractal structure of population outside the critical region to the original structure of charge density wave is investigated as well.