Majorana bound states in nanowire-superconductor hybrid systems in periodic magnetic fields

Abstract

We study how the shape of a periodic magnetic field affects the presence of Majorana bound states (MBS) in a nanowire-superconductor system. Motivated by the field configurations that can be produced by an array of nanomagnets, we consider spiral fields with an elliptic cross-section and fields with two sinusoidal components. We show that MBS are robust to imperfect helical magnetic fields. In particular, if the amplitude of one component is tuned to the value determined by the superconducting order parameter in the wire, the MBS can exist even if the second component has a much smaller amplitude. We also explore the effect of the chemical potential on the phase diagram. Our analysis is both numerical and analytical, with good agreement between the two methods.

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• 1D Majorana Goldstinos and partial supersymmetry breaking in quantum wires
• Topological superconductivity in a magnetic-texture coupled Josephson junction
• Optimal design of nanomagnets for on-chip field gradients
• Zero-bias conductance peaks at zero applied magnetic field due to stray fields from integrated micromagnets in hybrid nanowire quantum dots
• Odd-frequency Pairing in Josephson Junctions Coupled by Magnetic Textures
• Nanoscale stray fields from micromagnets for optimal spin qubit architecture