Electrical probes of the non-Abelian spin liquid phase in α-RuCl<sub>3</sub>

ORAL

Abstract

Recent thermal-transport experiments indicate that the Kitaev material α-RuCl3 realizes a non-Abelian spin liquid with Ising topological order over a range of magnetic fields. We propose a series of measurements for electrically detecting the hallmark chiral Majorana edge states and bulk anyons in the spin-liquid phase -- despite the fact that α-RuCl3 is a good Mott insulator. In particular, we introduce circuits that exploit interfaces between electronic systems and α-RuCl3 to convert physical fermions into emergent fermions, thus enabling analogues of transport probes of non-Abelian-anyon physics in topological superconductors. We further propose detection of individual bulk neutral fermions via a spin counterpart of charge sensing. Our results illuminate a partial pathway towards using Kitaev materials for topological quantum computation.

*DA is supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, under the EPiQS initiative, Grant GBMF4304. BH acknowledges support from the Department of Energy Early Career program under award number DE-SC0018115. DGM acknowledges support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s EPiQS Initiative through Grant GBMF4416. JA acknowledges support from the Army Research Office Grant Award W911NF-17-1-0323; NSF grant DMR-1723367.

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Presenters

  • David Aasen

    • Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
    • University of California, Santa Barbara
    • Caltech

Authors

  • David Aasen

    • Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
    • University of California, Santa Barbara
    • Caltech

  • Roger Mong

    • Physics, University of Pittsburgh
    • Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh
    • University of Pittsburgh
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh

  • Benjamin Matthew Hunt

    • Physics, Carnegie Mellon University
    • Carnegie Mellon University
    • Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University

  • David George Mandrus

    • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA
    • University of Tennessee-Knoxville
    • Oak Ridge National Lab
    • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee
    • University of Tennessee (Knoxville, USA)
    • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee Knoxville
    • Department of Material Science & Engineering, University of Tennessee
    • Material Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee
    • Materials Science and Technology, Materials Science and Technology
    • University of Tennessee, Knoxville
    • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Tennessee
    • Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Tennessee
    • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
    • Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee

  • Jason Alicea

    • Caltech
    • Physics, California Institute of Technology
    • California Institute of Technology