# Topology by Dissipation: Majorana Bosons in Metastable Quadratic Markovian Dynamics

**Authors:** Vincent P. Flynn, Emilio Cobanera, Lorenza Viola  
**arXiv:** [2104.03985](https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.03985)  
**Date:** 2021-04-08  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/fr/paper/2104.03985v2/

## Abstract

Majorana bosons, that is, tight bosonic analogs of the Majorana fermionic quasiparticles of condensed matter physics, are forbidden for gapped free bosonic matter within a standard Hamiltonian scenario. We show how the interplay between dynamical metastability and nontrivial bulk topology makes their emergence possible in noninteracting bosonic chains undergoing Markovian dissipation. This leads to a distinctive form of topological metastability, whereby a conserved Majorana boson localized on one edge is paired, in general, with a symmetry generator localized on the opposite edge. We argue that Majorana bosons are robust against disorder and identifiable by signatures in the zero-frequency steady-state power spectrum. Our results suggest that symmetry-protected topological phases for free bosons may arise in transient metastable regimes, which persist over practical timescales.