ICTP Colloquium Today, 21 August 2012 at 16:00

[Infopoint]

*ICTP COLLOQUIUM*

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*16:00, Tuesday, 21 August 2012*

*Main Lecture Hall, Leonardo Building, ICTP*

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*The search for Majorana fermions*

*in superconductors*

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*Carlo Beenakker*

*Instituut-Lorentz*

*Leiden University*

Majorana fermions (particles which are their own antiparticle) may or 
may not exist in Nature as elementary building blocks, but in condensed 
matter they can be constructed out of electron and hole excitations. 
What is needed is a superconductor to hide the charge difference, and a 
topological (Berry) phase to eliminate the energy difference from 
zero-point motion. A pair of widely separated Majorana fermions, bound 
to magnetic or electrostatic defects, has non-Abelian exchange 
statistics. A qubit encoded in this Majorana pair is expected to have an 
unusually long coherence time. We discuss strategies to detect Majorana 
fermions in a topological superconductor, as well as possible 
applications in a quantum computer. The status of the experimental 
search is reviewed.

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