Distinguishing Majorana bound states from accidental zero-energy modes with a microwave cavity

Abstract

Transport measurements of hybrid nanowires often rely on the observation of a zero-bias conductance peak as a hallmark of Majorana bound states (MBSs). However, such signatures can also be produced by trivial zero-energy Andreev bound states (ABSs) or by quasi-Majorana bound states (QMBSs), complicating their unambiguous identification. Here we propose microwave absorption visibility, extracted from parity-dependent cavity-nanowire susceptibility measurements, as a complementary probe of MBSs nonlocality. We study a Rashba spin-orbit nanowire consisting of a proximitized superconducting segment and an uncovered quantum-dot region, capacitively coupled to a single-mode microwave cavity. We show that true MBSs yield finite visibility only when both MBSs are simultaneously coupled to the cavity, reflecting their intrinsic nonlocality. In contrast, ABSs and QMBSs exhibit visibility extrema even when the cavity couples only locally to part of the nanowire. We further demonstrate that this distinction persists in the presence of Gaussian disorder, which may otherwise generate trivial subgap states. Motivated by recent experiments, we also analyze ``poor man's" Majoranas in double-quantum-dot setups, where analytical results confirm the same nonlocal visibility criterion. Finally, we discuss a cavity-driven scheme for initializing the electronic system in a given parity state. Our results establish cavity-based visibility as a robust and versatile probe of MBSs, providing a clear route to distinguish them from trivial zero-energy states in hybrid superconducting platforms.

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