Symmetry Reduction and Boundary Modes for Fe-Chains on an s-wave Superconductor

Abstract

We investigate the superconducting phase diagram and boundary modes for a quasi-1D system formed by three Fe-Chains on an s-wave superconductor, motivated by the recent Princeton experiment. The $\vec{l}\cdot \vec{s}$ onsite spin-orbit term, inter-chain diagonal hopping couplings, and magnetic disorders in the Fe-chains are shown to be crucial for the superconducting phases, which can be topologically trivial or nontrivial in different parameter regimes. For the topological regime a single Majorana and multiple Andreew bound modes are obtained in the ends of the chain, while for the trivial phase only low-energy Andreev bound states survive. Nontrivial symmetry reduction mechanism induced by the $\vec{l}\cdot \vec{s}$ term, diagonal hopping couplings, and magnetic disorder is uncovered to interpret the present results. Our study also implies that the zero-bias peak observed in the recent experiment may or may not reflect the Majorana zero modes in the end of the Fe-chains.

5 pages, 4 figures; some minor errors are corrected

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