Contributor info: Prof. Jakub Tworzydlo

Paul Baireuther, Marcin Płodzień, Teemu Ojanen, Jakub Tworzydło, Timo Hyart

SciPost Phys. Core 6, 087 (2023) · published 15 December 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Fascination in topological materials originates from their remarkable response properties and exotic quasiparticles which can be utilized in quantum technologies. In particular, large-scale efforts are currently focused on realizing topological superconductors and their Majorana excitations. However, determining the topological nature of superconductors with current experimental probes is an outstanding challenge. This shortcoming has become increasingly pressing due to rapidly developing designer platforms which are theorized to display very rich topology and are better accessed by local probes rather than transport experiments. We introduce a robust machine learning protocol for classifying the topological states of two-dimensional (2D) chiral superconductors and insulators from local density of states (LDOS) data. Since the LDOS can be measured with standard experimental techniques, our protocol contributes to overcoming the almost three decades standing problem of identifying the topological phase of 2D superconductors with broken time-reversal symmetry.

M. J. Pacholski, G. Lemut, J. Tworzydło, C. W. J. Beenakker

SciPost Phys. 11, 105 (2021) · published 14 December 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

The spatial discretization of the single-cone Dirac Hamiltonian on the surface of a topological insulator or superconductor needs a special "staggered" grid, to avoid the appearance of a spurious second cone in the Brillouin zone. We adapt the Stacey discretization from lattice gauge theory to produce a generalized eigenvalue problem, of the form ${\mathcal H}\psi=E {\mathcal P}\psi$, with Hermitian tight-binding operators ${\mathcal H}$, ${\mathcal P}$, a locally conserved particle current, and preserved chiral and symplectic symmetries. This permits the study of the spectral statistics of Dirac fermions in each of the four symmetry classes A, AII, AIII, and D.