Majorana fermions in an out-of-equilibrium topological superconducting wire: an exact microscopic transport analysis of a p-wave open chain coupled to normal leads

Abstract

Topological superconductors are prime candidates for the implementation of topological-quantum-computation ideas because they can support non-Abelian excitations like Majorana fermions. We go beyond the low-energy effective-model descriptions of Majorana bound states (MBSs), to derive non-equilibrium transport properties of wire geometries of these systems in the presence of arbitrarily large applied voltages. Our approach involves quantum Langevin equations and non-equilibrium Green's functions. By virtue of a full microscopic calculation we are able to model the tunnel coupling between the superconducting wire and the metallic leads realistically; study the role of high-energy non-topological excitations; predict how the behavior compares for increasing number of odd vs. even number of sites; and study the evolution across the topological quantum phase transition (QPT). We find that the normalized spectral weight in the MBSs can be remarkably large and goes to zero continuously at the topological QPT. Our results have concrete implications for the experimental search and study of MBSs.

5 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (15)

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• Tunneling transport in NSN junctions made of Majorana nanowires across the topological quantum phase transition
• General framework for transport in spin-orbit-coupled superconducting heterostructures: Nonuniform spin-orbit coupling and spin-orbit-active interfaces
• Dynamics of hybrid junctions of Majorana wires
• Transport in spinless superconducting wires
• Topological states in normal and superconducting $p$-wave chains
• Nonequilibrium electrical, thermal and spin transport in open quantum systems of topological superconductors, semiconductors and metals
• Fano interference and a slight fluctuation of the Majorana hallmark
• Do Majorana zero modes emerge in the hybrid nanowire under a strong magnetic field?
• Full counting statistics of the currents through a Kitaev chain and the exchange fluctuation theorem
• Dynamical Phase Error in Interacting Topological Quantum Memories
• Detecting winding and Chern numbers in topological matter using spectral function
• Non-Markovian transients in transport across chiral quantum wires using space-time non-equilibrium Green functions
• Electrical, thermal and thermoelectric transport in open long-range Kitaev chain
• Transport in extended Kitaev chain with time reversal symmetry breaking and long-range interaction