Majorana Braiding with Thermal Noise

Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Sep 18;115(12):120402. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.120402. Epub 2015 Sep 15.

Abstract

We investigate the self-correcting properties of a network of Majorana wires, in the form of a trijunction, in contact with a parity-preserving thermal environment. As opposed to the case where Majorana bound states are immobile, braiding Majorana bound states within a trijunction introduces dangerous error processes that we identify. Such errors prevent the lifetime of the memory from increasing with the size of the system. We confirm our predictions with Monte Carlo simulations. Our findings put a restriction on the degree of self-correction of this specific quantum computing architecture.