Emergent Majorana mass and axion couplings in superfluids

Abstract

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. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.