Vortex states in a non-Abelian magnetic field

Article

关键词: HGTE QUANTUM-WELLS;    TRANSITION;    BOSONS;   

DOI  :  10.1103/PhysRevB.94.064523

来源: SCIE

【 摘 要 】

A type-II superconductor survives in an external magnetic field by admitting an Abrikosov lattice of quantized vortices. This is an imprint of the Aharonov-Bohm effect created by the Abelian U(1) gauge field. The simplest non-Abelian analog of such a gauge field, which belongs to the SU(2) symmetry group, can be found in topological insulators. Here we discover a superconducting ground state with a lattice of SU(2) vortices in a simple two-dimensional model that presents an SU(2) magnetic field (invariant under time reversal) to attractively interacting fermions. The model directly captures the correlated topological insulator quantum well, and approximates one channel for instabilities on the Kondo topological insulator surface. Due to its simplicity, the model might become amenable to cold atom simulations in the foreseeable future. The vitality of low-energy vortex states born out of SU(2) magnetic fields is promising for the creation of incompressible vortex liquids with non-Abelian fractional excitations.

【 授权许可】

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