Strong Coulomb interactions in the problem of Majorana modes in a wire of the nontrivial topological class BDI

S. V. Aksenov, A. O. Zlotnikov, and M. S. Shustin

Phys. Rev. B 101, 125431 – Published 30 March 2020

Abstract

In this study, the problem of strong Coulomb interactions in topological superconducting wire is analyzed by means of the density-matrix-renormalization-group (DMRG) approach. To analyze properties of edge states in the BDI-class structure, a quantity called Majorana polarization is used. From its dependence on wire length and an entanglement-spectrum degeneracy, topological phase diagrams are obtained. The DMRG calculations for the Shubin-Vonsovsky–type model of the wire show the transformation of phases with Majorana single and double modes (MSMs and MDMs, respectively) under the increase of onsite and intersite correlations. In particular, we demonstrate different scenarios including the possibilities of both induction and suppression of the MSMs and MDMs. It is shown that in the strongly correlated regime, the contributions of single-particle excitations to the Majorana-type states significantly decrease at low magnetic fxields. Moreover, the $t - J^{*} - V$ model is derived allowing to study the effective interactions and improve the DMRG numerics. It is found out that in the limiting case of the effective Hamiltonian with infinitely strong onsite repulsion, $t$ model, the topological phases are destroyed. Finally, the ways to probe the MSMs and MDMs via the features of caloric functions are discussed.