The invisible Majorana bound state at the helical edge

Abstract

The presence of a Majorana bound state in condensed matter systems is often associated to a zero bias peak in conductance measurements. Here, we analyze a system were this paradigm is violated. A Majorana bound state is always present at the interface between a quantum spin Hall system that is magnetically gapped and a quantum spin Hall system gapped by proximity induced s-wave superconductivity. However, the linear conductance could be either zero or nonzero and quantized depending on the energy and length scales of the barriers. The transition between the two values is reminiscent of the topological phase transition in proximitized spin-orbit coupled quantum wires in the presence of an applied magnetic field. We interpret the behavior of the conductance in terms of scattering states at both zero and non-zero energy.

arXiv commentsubmitted to: EPJ ST Special Issue: Topological States of Matter: Theory and Applications

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• From fractional solitons to Majorana fermions in a paradigmatic model of topological superconductivity
• On-demand thermoelectric generation of equal-spin Cooper pairs
• Thermodynamics in topological Josephson junctions
• Waiting time distributions in Quantum spin hall based heterostructures
• Transport signatures of a Floquet topological transition at the helical edge
• Voltage-tunable Majorana bound states in time-reversal symmetric bilayer quantum spin Hall hybrid systems
• Identifying Majorana bound states at quantum spin Hall edges using a metallic probe
• Phase-tunable multiple Andreev reflections in a quantum spin Hall strip
• Spin responses of a disordered helical superconducting edge under Zeeman field