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Fractional Angular Momentum at Topological Insulator Interfaces.

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Recently, two fundamental topological properties of a magnetic vortex at the interface of a superconductor (SC) and a strong topological insulator (TI) have been established: The vortex carries both a… Click to show full abstract

Recently, two fundamental topological properties of a magnetic vortex at the interface of a superconductor (SC) and a strong topological insulator (TI) have been established: The vortex carries both a Majorana zero mode relevant for topological quantum computation and, for a time-reversal invariant TI, a charge of e/4. This fractional charge is caused by the axion term in the electromagnetic Lagrangian of the TI. Here we determine the angular momentum J of the vortices, which in turn determines their mutual statistics. Solving the axion-London electrodynamic equations including screening in both a SC and a TI, we find that the elementary quantum of angular momentum of the vortex is -n^{2}ℏ/8, where n is the flux quantum of the vortex line. Exchanging two elementary fluxes thus changes the phase of the wave function by -π/4.

Keywords: topological insulator; angular momentum; fractional angular; momentum topological; momentum

Journal Title: Physical review letters
Year Published: 2018

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