Emergent Majorana mass and axion couplings in superfluids

Axions (in the general sense) may acquire qualitatively new couplings inside superfluids. Their conventional couplings to fermions, in empty space, involve purely imaginary masses; the new couplings involve emergent Majorana masses. A generalized concept of Majorana mass is proposed, which allows co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:New journal of physics 2014-08, Vol.16 (8), p.82003-8
Main Author: Wilczek, Frank
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analogue
axion
Bosons
Couplings
Fermions
Fluids
Interpolation
Links
Majorana
Physics
superfluid
Superfluidity
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Summary:Axions (in the general sense) may acquire qualitatively new couplings inside superfluids. Their conventional couplings to fermions, in empty space, involve purely imaginary masses; the new couplings involve emergent Majorana masses. A generalized concept of Majorana mass is proposed, which allows continuous interpolation between Majorana and Dirac fermions, and also extension to bosons. The possibility of weak links for axions, recently put forward, is analyzed and replaced with a non-local analogue.
ISSN:1367-2630
1367-2630
DOI:10.1088/1367-2630/16/8/082003