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We study the effect of thermal fluctuations on the topological properties of chiral p-wave superconductors. In particular, we allow for thermally excited topological defects – vortices and anti-vortices. We find that the topological degeneracy remains robust as long as topological excitations remain paired. Above the KT transition, disorder-driven low-energy modes give rise to either a thermal metal or a non-topological thermal insulating phase, which have a drastically different splitting of the topological degeneracy. We can relate these results from the point of view of localization-delocalization transition studied in the context of disordered superconductors breaking time-reversal and spin symmetry.

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Bela Bauer, Station Q
Seminarraum II. Physik
Contact: not specified