Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / 1

For independent bosonic modes, the canonical commutation relation isFor independent fermionic modes, the canonical anticommutation relations arewhere $[A,B]=AB-BA$ and $\{A,B\}=AB+BA$. The creation operator is the adjoint of the annihilation operator. In either case the mode's number operator iswith $a_i=b_i$ or $c_i$ as appropriate. It measures the mode's occupation number. Its possible eigenvalues areFor fermions, $c_i^2=0$ implies $n_i^2=c_i^{†}(1-c_i^{†}{c}_i)c_i=n_i$, so the number operator is a projection. This expresses the exclusion of double occupation of one fermionic mode. The total particle number is $N={\sum }_i{n}_i$.

Expand the anticommutators using the relations in part (a). The terms with two creation or two annihilation operators vanish, leavingEach Majorana fermion operator is Hermitian and squares to the identity. In particular, $({\gamma }_i^A{)}^{†}{\gamma }_i^A=1$, so this expression cannot distinguish an empty mode from an occupied one. A single Majorana operator is its own adjoint and does not supply distinct creation and annihilation operators for such an occupation.

An occupation can instead be assigned after pairing Majorana operators into a fermionic mode. For two distinct Majorana operators ${\gamma }_a,{\gamma }_b$,This is a nontrivial projection operator with eigenvalues zero and one. Thus occupation belongs to a chosen pair of Majorana operators, not to an individual Majorana operator.

Use $c_j=({\gamma }_j^A+i{\gamma }_j^B)/2$ and $c_j^{†}=({\gamma }_j^A-i{\gamma }_j^B)/2$. Moving operators from different modes past one another introduces a minus sign. Direct expansion givesThus, for real hopping and pairing parameters,At $\Delta =t\ne 0$ this becomesUse $\tau$ for time to distinguish it from the hopping amplitude $t$. Each unused Majorana operator anticommutes with both factors in $H$, so commuting it through their product gives two minus signs. Hence $[H,{\gamma }_1^A]=[H,{\gamma }_2^B]=0$. The Heisenberg picture equation $dO/d\tau =(i/\hslash )[H,O]$ therefore givesThese are the two uncoupled Majorana zero modes.

For any two distinct normalized Majorana fermion operators $\eta ,\chi$, let $f=(\eta +i\chi )/2$. ThenandThe same applies to $f^{†}$. Both specified pairs have this form. Moreover, the Majorana operators entering $f_1$ are all distinct from those entering $f_2$, so every cross anticommutator is zero. ThereforeThus $f_1,f_2$ are ordinary fermionic annihilation operators, constructed by a different pairing of the four Majorana operators.

The occupation formula from part (b) givesConsequentlyThe independent occupation numbers $n_1,n_2$ are each zero or one. The Hamiltonian is independent of $n_1$, so its four states haveEach energy admits $n_1=0$ or $n_1=1$; these states differ by occupancy of the zero-energy mode. The ground energy is $-|t|$ for either sign of $t$. These degeneracies refer to the full two-mode fermionic Fock space. If one separately restricts to a fixed global fermion parity, only one state at each energy remains in that parity sector.