TY  - JOUR
A1  - Scharf, Benedikt
A1  - Braggio, Alessandro
A1  - Stambini, Elia
A1  - Giazotto, Francesco
A1  - Hankiewicz, Ewelina M.
T1  - Topological Josephson heat engine
JF  - Communications Physics
N2  - Topological superconductors represent a fruitful playing ground for fundamental research as well as for potential applications in fault-tolerant quantum computing. Especially Josephson junctions based on topological superconductors remain intensely studied, both theoretically and experimentally. The characteristic property of these junctions is their 4-periodic ground-state fermion parity in the superconducting phase difference. Using such topological Josephson junctions, we introduce the concept of a topological Josephson heat engine. We discuss how this engine can be implemented as a Josephson-Stirling cycle in topological superconductors, thereby illustrating the potential of the intriguing and fruitful marriage between topology and coherent thermodynamics. It is shown that the Josephson-Stirling cycle constitutes a highly versatile thermodynamic machine with different modes of operation controlled by the cycle temperatures. Finally, the thermodynamic cycle reflects the hallmark 4 pi -periodicity of topological Josephson junctions and could therefore be envisioned as a complementary approach to test topological superconductivity. Topological superconductors are expected to be a key component of quantum computing systems but reliably detecting their exotic properties is a challenge. Here, the authors propose a topological Josephson heat engine which uses thermodynamic effects to probe the 4 pi -periodic ground state of a topological superconductor.
KW  - superconductivity
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-230603
VL  - 3
ER  -