Physical Society Colloquium

Ettore Majorana and his strange particles

Marcel Franz

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of British Columbia

In 1937 Italian physicist Ettore Majorana predicted the existence of strange fermionic particles that are their own antiparticles. It is possible that neutrinos realize such Majorana fermions but 77 years after the historical prediction the evidence remains inconclusive. In this talk I will describe recent efforts to engineer and observe a special type of Majorana particle called “Majorana zero mode” in solid state systems. These elusive particles are thought to exhibit a range of unusual physical properties, including the so called non-Abelian exchange statistics, a feature that may be useful in future quantum computers. I will explain the intriguing physics behind the solid-state realizations of Majorana zero modes, their relation to the original Majorana fermions in particle physics, and discuss their potential significance for future technologies.