Disorder-enhanced topological protection and universal quantum criticality in a spin-3/2 topological superconductor

作者:Ghorashi Sayed Ali Akbar*; Davis Seth; Foster Matthew S
来源:PHYSICAL REVIEW B, 2017, 95(14): 144503.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.95.144503

摘要

We study the Majorana surface states of higher-spin topological superconductors (TSCs) that could be realized in ultracold atomic systems or doped semimetals with spin-orbit coupling. As a paradigmatic example, we consider a model with p-wave pairing of spin-3/2 fermions that generalizes He-3-B. This model has coexisting linear and cubic dispersing Majorana surface bands. We show that these are unstable to interactions, which can generate a spontaneous surface thermal quantum Hall effect (TQHE). By contrast, nonmagnetic quenched disorder induces a surface conformal field theory (CFT) that is stable against weak interactions: topological protection is enhanced by disorder. Gapless surface states of higher-spin TSCs could therefore be robustly realized in solid-state systems, where disorder is inevitable. The surface CFT is characterized by universal signatures that depend only on the bulk topological winding number, and they include power-law scaling of the density of states, a universal multifractal spectrum of local density of states fluctuations, and a quantized ratio of the longitudinal thermal conductivity kappa(xx) divided by temperature T. By contrast, kappa(xx)/T for the clean surface without TQHE order would diverge as T -> 0. Since disorder stabilizes the conducting Majorana surface fluid and quantizes thermal transport, our results suggest a close analogy between bulk TSCs and the integer quantum Hall effect.

  • 出版日期2017-4-3