Finding the lost particle: Majorana fermions in ultracold atoms

马约拉纳费米子——一种本身就是反粒子的粒子——在未来的量子技术中扮演着关键的角色，比如容错量子计算机。在过去的75年里，它们只是被认为是一种数学上的可能性，但由于最近实验的快速进展，它们可能会令人惊讶地成为现实。该项目与澳大利亚、中国和美国的世界领先的冷原子实验室合作，旨在通过使用高度可控的超冷原子费米气体设置，为创造和操纵马约拉纳费米子走向现实的原子电子设备铺平新的方向。这项研究补充了马约拉纳费米子在固态器件中的研究。

Majorana fermions – particles that are their own antiparticles – play a key role in future quantum technologies such as fault-tolerant quantum computers. Being considered only as a mathematical possibility over the past 75 years, they might be surprisingly materialised owing to recent rapid experimental advances. In collaboration with the world-leading cold-atom laboratories in Australia, China and the USA, this project aims to pave a new direction to create and manipulate Majorana fermions towards realistic atomtronics devices, by using the highly controllable setting of ultracold atomic Fermi gases. This research complements the search of Majorana fermions in solid-state devices.