Josephson current signatures of the Majorana flat bands on the surface of time-reversal-invariant Weyl and Dirac semimetals

Abstract

A linear Josephson junction mediated by the surface states of a time-reversal-invariant Weyl or Dirac semimetal localizes Majorana flat bands protected by the time-reversal symmetry. We show that as a result, the Josephson current exhibits a discontinuous jump at $\pi$ phase difference which can serve as an experimental signature of the Majorana bands. The magnitude of the jump scales proportionally to the junction width and the momentum space distance between the Weyl nodes. It also exhibits a characteristic dependence on the junction orientation. We demonstrate that the jump is robust against the effects of non-zero temperature and weak non-magnetic disorder.

8 pages, 7 figures

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• Detection of hole pockets in the candidate type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe${}_2$ from Shubnikov-de Haas quantum oscillations
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• Zero Bias Conductance Peak in Dirac Semimetal-Superconductor Devices
• Influence of a chiral chemical potential on Weyl hybrid junctions
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• Unveiling Topological Hinge States in the Higher-Order Topological Insulator WTe${}_2$ Based on the Fractional Josephson Effect