Symmetry-breaking signatures of multiple Majorana zero modes in one-dimensional spin-triplet superconductors

Abstract

We study the effects of various symmetry-breaking perturbations on the experimentally measurable signatures (such as conductance and Josephson response) of quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) spin-triplet superconductors. In the first part of the paper, we numerically compute the zero and nonzero temperature conductances of the quasi-1D nanowires that host multiple Majorana zero modes. Following the discussion of the case of s-wave Rashba nanowires, we shift to the main focus, i.e., multichannel spin-triplet superconductors. Applying gate voltages (which changes the symmetry of the spin-orbit coupling) as well as magnetic fields to the nanowire, tunes the system between different symmetry classes by splitting the multiple Majorana zero modes. We study how the conductance tracks the topological invariants and the spectra in all these cases. In the second part of the paper, we study the effects of the symmetry-induced spectrum-breaking on the Andreev spectra of Josephson junctions. Similar to the case of the conductance studies, we find that the spectrum shows multiple zero-energy Andreev bound states in the highly symmetric case with mirror and chiral symmetries.

journal version published in PRB

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• Signatures of two- and three-dimensional semimetals from circular dichroism
• Identifying trivial and Majorana zero-energy modes using the Majorana polarization
• Quality factor for zero-bias conductance peaks in Majorana nanowire
• Disordered Majorana nanowires: Studying disorder without any disorder
• Ballistic transport in 1D Rashba systems in the context of Majorana nanowires
• Rashba spin-orbit coupling and artificially engineered topological superconductors