No Arabic abstract
The conductance measurement of a half quantized plateau in a quantum anomalous Hall insulator-superconductor structure is reported by a recent experiment [Q. L. He textit{et al.}, Science 357, 294-299 (2017)], which suggests the existence of the chiral Majorana fermion modes. However, such half quantized conductance plateau may also originates from a disorder-induced metallic phase. To identify the exact mechanism, we study the transport properties of such a system in the presence of strong disorders. Our results show that the local current density distributions of these two mechanisms are different. In particular, the current noises measurement can be used to distinguish them without any further fabrication of current experimental setup.
The quantum evolution after a metallic lead is suddenly connected to an electron system contains information about the excitation spectrum of the combined system. We exploit this type of quantum quench to probe the presence of Majorana fermions at the ends of a topological superconducting wire. We obtain an algebraically decaying overlap (Loschmidt echo) ${cal L}(t)=| < psi(0) | psi(t) > |^2sim t^{-alpha}$ for large times after the quench, with a universal critical exponent $alpha$=1/4 that is found to be remarkably robust against details of the setup, such as interactions in the normal lead, the existence of additional lead channels or the presence of bound levels between the lead and the superconductor. As in recent quantum dot experiments, this exponent could be measured by optical absorption, offering a new signature of Majorana zero modes that is distinct from interferometry and tunneling spectroscopy.
Conductance signatures that signal the presence of Majorana zero modes in a three terminal nanowire-topological superconductor hybrid system are analyzed in detail, in both the clean nanowire limit and in the presence of non-coherent dephasing interactions. In the coherent transport regime for a clean wire, we point out contributions of the local Andreev reflection and the non-local transmissions toward the total conductance lineshapes while clarifying the role of contact broadening on the Majorana conductance lineshapes at the magnetic field parity crossings. Interestingly, at larger $B$-field parity crossings, the contribution of the Andreev reflection process decreases which is compensated by the non-local processes in order to maintain the conductance quantum regardless of contact coupling strength. In the non-coherent transport regime, we include dephasing that is introduced by momentum randomization processes, that allows one to smoothly transition to the diffusive limit. Here, as expected, we note that while the Majorana character of the zero modes is unchanged, there is a reduction in the conductance peak magnitude that scales with the strength of the impurity scattering potentials. Important distinctions between the effect of non-coherent dephasing processes and contact-induced tunnel broadenings in the coherent regime on the conductance lineshapes are elucidated. Most importantly our results reveal that the addition of dephasing in the set up does not lead to any notable length dependence to the conductance of the zero modes, contrary to what one would expect in a gradual transition to the diffusive limit. We believe this work paves a way for a systematic introduction of scattering processes into the realistic modeling of Majorana nanowire hybrid devices and assessing topological signatures in such systems in the presence of non-coherent scattering processes.
Majorana fermions in a superconductor hybrid system are charge neutral zero-energy states. For the detection of this unique feature, we propose an interferometry of a chiral Majorana edge channel, formed along the interface between a superconductor and a topological insulator under an external magnetic field. The superconductor is of a ring shape and has a Josephson junction that allows the Majorana state to enclose continuously tunable magnetic flux. Zero-bias differential electron conductance between the Majorana state and a normal lead is found to be independent of the flux at zero temperature, manifesting the Majorana feature of a charge neutral zero-energy state. In contrast, the same setup on graphene has no Majorana state and shows Aharonov-Bohm effects.
Chiral and helical Majorana edge modes are two archetypal gapless excitations of two-dimensional topological superconductors. They belong to superconductors from two different Altland-Zirnbauer symmetry classes characterized by $mathbb{Z}$ and $mathbb{Z}_2$ topological invariant respectively. It seems improbable to tune a pair of co-propagating chiral edge modes to counter-propagate without symmetry breaking. Here we show that such a direct topological transition is in fact possible, provided the system possesses an additional symmetry $mathcal{O}$ which changes the bulk topological invariant to $mathbb{Z}oplus mathbb{Z}$ type. A simple model describing the proximity structure of a Chern insulator and a $p_x$-wave superconductor is proposed and solved analytically to illustrate the transition between two topologically nontrivial phases. The weak pairing phase has two chiral Majorana edge modes, while the strong pairing phase is characterized by $mathcal{O}$-graded Chern number and hosts a pair of counter-propagating Majorana fermions. The bulk topological invariants and edge theory are worked out in detail. Implications of these results to topological quantum computing based on Majorana fermions are discussed.
We study the transport of chiral Majorana edge modes (CMEMs) in a hybrid quantum anomalous Hall insulator-topological superconductor (QAHI-TSC) system in which the TSC region contains a Josephson junction and a cavity. The Josephson junction undergoes a topological transition when the magnetic flux through the cavity passes through half-integer multiples of magnetic flux quantum. For the trivial phase, the CMEMs transmit along the QAHI-TSC interface as without magnetic flux. However, for the nontrivial phase, a zero-energy Majorana state appears in the cavity, leading that a CMEM can resonantly tunnel through the Majorana state to a different CMEM. These findings may provide a feasible scheme to control the transport of CMEMs by using the magnetic flux and the transport pattern can be customized by setting the size of the TSC.