Eur. Phys. J. B (2013) 86: 347
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2013-31038-0

Regular Article

Topological superfluid in one-dimensional ultracold atomic system with spin-orbit coupling

Institute for Theoretical Physics and Department of Modern Physics University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, P.R. China

^a e-mail: slwan@ustc.edu.cn

Received: 13 November 2012
Received in final form: 30 March 2013
Published online: 5 August 2013

Abstract

We propose a one-dimensional Hamiltonian H_1D which supports Majorana fermions when d_{x² − y²}-wave superfluid appears in the ultracold atomic system and obtain the phase diagrams both for the time-reversal-invariant (TRI) case and time-reversal-symmetry-breaking (TRSB) case. From the phase diagrams, we find that the Majorana doublets and the single Majorana fermions exist in the topological superfluid (TSF) regions for the TRI case and the TRSB case, respectively, and we can reach these regions by tuning the chemical potential μ and spin-orbit coupling α_R. Importantly, the spin-orbit coupling has been realized in ultracold atoms by the recent experimental achievement of synthetic gauge field, therefore, our one-dimensional ultra-cold atomic system described by H_1D is a promising platform to find the mysterious Majorana fermions.