Majorana fermion

A fermion that is identical to its own antiparticle. Elementary Majorana fermions remain hypothetical, while Majorana quasiparticles can emerge as collective excitations in condensed matter.

Antiparticle: A particle with the same mass as its corresponding particle and opposite values for certain charges. A Majorana fermion is identical to the antiparticle that an ordinary charged fermion has separately.
Majorana equation: A relativistic wave equation formulated by Ettore Majorana with solutions that can describe neutral fermions identical to their antiparticles. It gives the original field-theoretic framework for Majorana particles.
Topological quantum computing: A quantum-computing approach that encodes information in global topological properties to reduce sensitivity to local noise. Majorana modes could store and process information through nonlocal, topologically protected operations.
Kitaev chain: A one-dimensional model of a spinless p-wave superconductor that supports Majorana zero modes at its ends. Its end modes provide the canonical theoretical case for spatially separated Majorana excitations.
Majorana neutrino: A neutrino that is identical to its own antiparticle. Neutrinos are the leading known elementary particles that could have Majorana character.
Fermion: A particle with half-integer spin that obeys Fermi–Dirac statistics and the Pauli exclusion principle. Majorana fermions are a special possibility within the fermion family.
Bogoliubov–de Gennes equation: A mean-field equation describing quasiparticle excitations in superconductors, including mixtures of particle and hole states. Its particle–hole structure permits superconducting excitations with Majorana character.
Non-Abelian anyon: A quasiparticle whose exchanges act as noncommuting transformations on a degenerate quantum state space. Majorana zero modes are expected to exhibit non-Abelian exchange statistics in suitable systems.
Zero-bias anomaly: An enhanced conductance signal near zero voltage in a transport measurement. It can signal a Majorana mode, but also arises from non-Majorana effects.
Majorana zero mode: A zero-energy quasiparticle excitation whose creation operator is equal to its Hermitian conjugate. Experiments must distinguish genuine zero modes from look-alike signals.

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