Proposal to measure the quasiparticle poisoning time of Majorana bound states

We propose a method of measuring the fermion parity lifetime of Majorana fermion modes due to quasiparticle poisoning. We model quasiparticle poisoning by coupling the Majorana modes to electron reservoirs, explicitly breaking parity conservation in the system. This poisoning broadens and shortens t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lee, Patrick A., Colbert, Jacob Reid
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Physical Society 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88754
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5883-787X
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7809-8157
Description
Summary:We propose a method of measuring the fermion parity lifetime of Majorana fermion modes due to quasiparticle poisoning. We model quasiparticle poisoning by coupling the Majorana modes to electron reservoirs, explicitly breaking parity conservation in the system. This poisoning broadens and shortens the resonance peak associated with Majorana modes. In a two-lead geometry, the poisoning decreases the correlation in current noise between the two leads from the maximal value characteristic of crossed Andreev reflection. The latter measurement allows for calculation of the poisoning rate even if the temperature is much higher than the resonance width.